Eloise is tired. It’s three in the morning and she’s up with her son Joshua. His breath is coming in wheezy starts, and the inhaler provides only momentary relief. This is the third time he’s kept her up this week.

Joshua has been suffering from increasingly severe asthma attacks. Asthma can be triggered by substances in the air—anything from a combination of dust, pollen, animal fur, air pollution—that sets off the wheeze attacks.
According to the World Health Organization, air pollution is not only a major health threat to children, but also a risk factor for both acute and chronic respiratory disease.

It seems children are like litmus paper. At first they’re clean and clear, but once exposed to air pollution, they turn blue…
In order to combat this, Eloise and Joshua could swap the muddy air in the city for the more benign muddy grounds of the country. Or, instead, they could learn how to manage the environment they live in.

Dr Roy Colvile, a senior lecturer in Air-quality Management at Imperial College in London, has some advice for parents of suffocating city kids. In a recent study he outlined ways to navigate around pollution in the urban wasteland.
First off, we must teach our kids to avoid walking along busy streets and thoroughfares, and instead find alternate routes to the shops or school.

Look left, look right, and look left again. Every wise parent has given his or her child this piece of advice. Now there’s a new sentence to add: stand a metre away from the kerb. Dr Colvile is adamant that this can have a ‘dramatic’ effect, because apparently pollution levels drop by a factor of ten, by simply moving a few metres away from the source.

When pushing toddlers or babies in a pram, keep the pram away from the side of the road, he says, and instead push it alongside you. It’s also a good idea to get a plastic covering that zips up around the opening, to keep out the toxic particles.
Keep in mind that as children are smaller than adults, they are often closer to the source of pollution. According to Dr Colvile, they also have a faster metabolic rate and breathe more rapidly; unfortunately this also means inhaling more of the grime.
Air pollution can have far-reaching effects not only for children, but also for unborn foetuses. It’s said that polluted cities have higher incidences of low birth weights, premature births, stillbirths and infant deaths. Grisly stuff.

Pollution doesn’t just impact the old, the infirm and the ill, but it affects those at the very beginning of their lives.
If you do live in an area that has problems with pollution, get out of the smog once in awhile. Trade in the miasmic streets for oxygenated forest pathways and the great outdoors. You may just find the breathing easier.