Steroids, used to treat cold and wheezing in children, are ineffective and may cause some harmful effects, according to new research. Toddlers, who brought to the various hospitals of U.K with attack of wheezing, were treated with prednisolone. They all stayed at the hospitals for the same span of time as other children were treated with placebo.

Another study includes Canadian children who were using fluticasone as a preventive measure for wheezing, expressed moderate development, but the side effect of underdeveloped growth was far more than the benefits. Researchers said.

“It is distressing to count needless courses of prednisolone have been given in the past few years, in good faith, because we all assumed that preschool children are little adults,” Dr. Andrew Bush reported.

Wheezing is a kind of whistling that occur when a part of the respiratory tree get narrow or obstructed. This symptom occurs mostly in the asthmatic patients during exhale and this frightening noise may force parents to take their children to the hospitals. As a first aid, hospitals treat patients with steroids to open up the obstructed passage but this treatment is failed to cure transient wheezing in children.

687 hospitalized children, ages one to five years were randomly given prednisolone and dummy pills to treat wheezing, the difference of time spend in hospital was negligible between both groups; 11 hours for steroid group and 14 hours for placebo.

In the British study led by the University of Leicester, 687 children ages 10 months to 5 years who were hospitalized for wheezing were randomly given prednisolone or placebo treatment. There was no significant difference in the time spent in the hospital: 11 hours for the drug group compared with 14 hours for the placebo group.

Dr. Bradley Chipps, said “this research has provided us adequate information that what we are heading in wrong direction and need better alternatives.