Children of the first year of life who are breastfed usually have good immunity and cold diseases are very rare. But children on artificial feeding and premature infants often get sick. Factors that further impair immunity are rickets, insufficient or excessive weight gain in children, poor care, a rare stay in the fresh air, heredity.
Treatment of cough in infants: features
The main reasons for coughing in infants are:
- ARVI, the most frequent symptoms of which will be cough, runny nose and fever.
- Inflammatory diseases of the upper respiratory tract, which are bacterial complications of ARVI and also manifest themselves in cough.
- Contaminated air indoors or outdoors, too dry air in the child's room.
- Reflex cough that occurs when a foreign body enters the upper respiratory tract. Appears against a background of complete health during meals, especially when eating nuts or dry biscuits, as well as when playing a child with a violent attack of cough. It happens with inflammation of the middle ear due to irritation of the tympanic membrane.
Treatment of children coughing for up to a year depends not only on the causes that caused the cough, but also on the type of cough. There are such types:
- dry, unproductive (without sputum) and moist, productive (with sputum);
- acute (up to 3 weeks) and chronic;
- permanent and short-term, as well as episodic and paroxysmal.
Than to treat a cough to a baby?
In infants, the treatment of cough, especially by domestic methods, is possible only in the absence of fever. If the temperature is raised, then cough treatment in infants is carried out only in the hospital under the supervision of a doctor.
If we treat a cough without the temperature of the newborn, then first of all, we must take care of the microclimate in the room where the child is. The room should be regularly ventilated - at least 2 times a day, the temperature should be 20-22 degrees, and to increase the humidity in the room you can hang a wet diaper or put open containers with water.
To improve coughing up the child make a light massage of the chest and abdomen. To reduce intoxication and to prevent dehydration the child gives a sufficient amount of liquid for drinking. Very useful for a child with a cough will be fresh air, therefore one should not avoid walking on the street and it is recommended to lay babies in daytime sleep on a well-ventilated veranda, but only at normal body temperature. If the child has a dry cough, it must be made moist, for which the compresses are often used.
Drugs for cough in the first year of life
With a dry cough apply drugs that suppress cough only when it becomes paroxysmal and runs the risk of becoming a harbinger of bronchospasm.
If the cough is wet, then to ease the withdrawal of phlegm use the means for its dilution (Lazolvan, Ambroxol) in children after 3 years, as well as sprays, and for the production of sputum use special massage techniques, teas with chamomile and mother and stepmother, compresses and rubbing chest with eucalyptus ointment, mustard plasters through several layers of gauze.
At a high temperature, the doctor prescribes antipyretic drugs. And with purulent inflammation, an injectable course of broad-spectrum antibiotics (most often from the group of cephalosporins) can add.