Bay Area Pediatric Pulmonary Medical Corporation - BAPP

In order to cough you must take a big breath in and then close your vocal cords while starting to breathe out. The third step of coughing is to suddenly open the vocal cords and let the pressure which has built up escape which cause air to exit at ľ the speed of sound and the air flow strips the mucus right off the walls of the large airways.

If one is unable to cough?

A special device, the cough assist device – is just like it sounds. The device helps you take a big breath in and then assists to suck or create the needed negative pressure to make the cough. Children can learn to use this device at young ages and it can help to push in the big starting breath and suck for the forceful positive pressure clearance.

Normal Lung

The jobs of normal lungs are many! Most folks know about the need to get oxygen and to remove carbon dioxide. Lungs also make and destroy certain chemicals and help regulate other functions in the body.

Lung Anatomy

The Lung is made of airways or breathing tubes. The mouth leads to the voice box and the largest breathing tube – the trachea. This larger airway branches into many smaller tubes called bronchi and then bronchioles. The tubes end in small sacs called alveoli. The alveoli are surrounded by a dense network of capillaries – tiny blood vessels. The distance between the air in the alveoli and the red blood cells which carry the oxygen is extremely small, just a few microns. Air contains oxygen which is necessary for life and blood contains carbon dioxide which is the waste product from our metabolism. These two gases diffuse across the barrier between air and blood very quickly. The capillaries then join to become larger blood vessels that carry the red blood back to the heart to be pumped out to the body. The carbon dioxide is breathed out with every breath.