Hello. My 6 year old daughter is of normal height and weight. In the last 2-3 days she has complained of not being able to take a deep breath. I ve noticed this even when she is not trying to get my attention with it. Other than this, she has no symptoms of a cold or anything like this. I would love to know if this is something I should be concerned about! Thank you in advance! Liz
Hello, thank you for posting your question. Difficulty in taking long breath, could be interpreted in two ways. One, where there is true shortness of breath and the other where taking long breaths in painful leading to apparent shortness of breath. True shortness could be due to affection of any part of the respiratory tract from the nose the lungs. It could also be caused by affection of other systems like liver, kidneys or rarely brain. Apparent shortness could be due to injury to the rib cage, muscular pain or rarely affection of the pleura i.e. the surrounding layer of the lung. In order to find out what the exact cause is, the associated symptoms, origin duration and type of breathlessness needs to be studied. The intention of the above-mentioned list is not to scare you, but to reinforce the fact that if your child has shortness of breath then you need a medical consultation. It is also to suggest that if your child does not have any other symptoms apart from the shortness, then it is unlikely to be due to any organic or serious cause. If you have any more doubts regarding this case, do write back.