Can I Catch Asthma From My Child Who Has Asthma?

Absolutely not! Asthma is not an infectious condition. It cannot be transmitted from person to person, nor can it spread between people. Remember that there is an inherited component to the development of asthma and it is well established that the tendency to develop asthma runs in families. If one parent has asthma or certain allergies, a child has a greater chance of developing asthma and/or allergies than does a child of unaffected parents, who have neither asthma nor allergies.

The chance of a child developing asthma increases further when both parents have asthma. The exact role of genetics and the inheritance patterns of asthma are not well understood, and genetic inheritance alone is far from the whole story. Environmental factors clearly play a role in asthma development. If your child has asthma, and you are later diagnosed with asthma, too, this does not mean that you somehow “caught” asthma from your child; rather, your asthma diagnosis reflects genetic and environmental factors common to both you and your child.