Inhalation facts for kids

Inhalation is the first part of how people and animals breathe. It's when you take air from outside your body and pull it into your lungs. This air travels through your respiratory system, which is like a special pathway inside you. Once the air reaches your lungs, your body takes out the oxygen from it and puts that oxygen into your blood. Oxygen is super important for your body to work! After your body uses the oxygen, the air is then pushed back out of your lungs. This second part of breathing is called exhalation. Sometimes, medicines can also be breathed in using a special device called an inhaler to help them get into your blood quickly.

How You Breathe In

When you breathe in, it's not just your lungs doing the work. Your body uses special muscles to help. The most important muscle is called the diaphragm. It's a big, dome-shaped muscle located just below your lungs.

• When you inhale, your diaphragm tightens and moves downwards.
• At the same time, small muscles between your ribs, called intercostal muscles, pull your rib cage upwards and outwards.
• These actions make the space inside your chest bigger.
• When the space gets bigger, the air pressure inside your lungs drops. It becomes lower than the air pressure outside your body.
• Because air always moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure, outside air rushes into your lungs. This is how you take a breath!

The Air's Journey

The air you breathe in takes a specific path to reach your lungs:

• Nose and Mouth: Air usually enters through your nose, where tiny hairs and mucus clean and warm it. It can also enter through your mouth.
• Pharynx (Throat): From your nose or mouth, the air goes into your pharynx, which is the back of your throat.
• Larynx (Voice Box): Next, it passes through your larynx, which contains your vocal cords.
• Trachea (Windpipe): The air then travels down your trachea, a strong tube that stays open.
• Bronchi: The trachea splits into two main tubes called bronchi (one for each lung).
• Bronchioles: These bronchi branch out into smaller and smaller tubes called bronchioles, like the branches of a tree.
• Alveoli: At the very end of the smallest bronchioles are tiny air sacs called alveoli. Your lungs have millions of these!

Oxygen for Your Body

The main reason we breathe is to get oxygen. When the air reaches the alveoli in your lungs, something amazing happens:

• Each alveolus is surrounded by tiny blood vessels called capillaries.
• The walls of the alveoli and capillaries are super thin, allowing gases to pass through easily.
• Oxygen from the air in the alveoli moves across these thin walls and into your blood.
• At the same time, a waste gas called carbon dioxide moves from your blood into the alveoli. This carbon dioxide is then breathed out when you exhale.
• Once oxygen is in your blood, it's picked up by red blood cells and carried all over your body. Your body's cells use this oxygen to create energy, which helps you move, think, and grow.

Inhalation and Your Health

Breathing in clean air is very important for your health. Sometimes, people have conditions that affect their breathing:

• Asthma: People with asthma might have airways that get narrow and make it hard to breathe in. They often use an inhaler to deliver medicine directly to their lungs. This medicine helps open up their airways so they can breathe more easily.
• Air Quality: The air we breathe can sometimes have tiny particles or pollution. Breathing in polluted air can be bad for your lungs and overall health. That's why it's good to have clean air around us.

Inhalation is a vital process that happens automatically, keeping us alive and energized every moment of every day!