Children suffering from asthma should not sleep in the lower bed in bunk beds, the Asthma Society of Ireland advised yesterday. The advice follows research which found that sleeping in the lower bunk bed can aggravate the problem for asthmatics. Instead, they should sleep in the top bunk or in a separate bed.
An estimated 274,000 people in the State are asthmatics, including 143,000 children. The number of asthmatics is increasing, with one in seven people affected.
The study by doctors from the University Hospital, Tarragona, Spain, found that asthmatics who slept in the lower bunk were affected by allergy-causing dust mites in their own mattress and the mattress above.
The Spanish researchers studied 47 pairs of children who slept in bunks and, in controlled tests, found significantly more cases of asthma in those who slept in the lower bed. Their results are published in the current edition of the British Nursing Times.