Wen | Shanghai Children's Nutrition Center
The child is slightly inattentive, nasal congestion, runny nose, and incessant coughing ensues. Mom and Dad look in the eyes, uncomfortable in the heart, what should be done?
First of all, as parents, we must distinguish between the common cold and the flu. Because the two diseases are treated differently.
Common cold: generally 5-7 days will be cured by themselves, during the illness, the child will sneeze, runny nose, but the degree is milder, fever is rare, even if the fever, mostly not more than 38.5 ° C, the child's mental state is acceptable.
Flu: The child suddenly has a fever, the body temperature rises rapidly to more than 39 ° C, and at the beginning it will fight cold war, shivering, and when the fever is high, the baby's mental state is not good, and the appetite is very poor. After a day or two, the cough began to slowly worsen.
Influenza It is a disease caused by a viral infection of the respiratory system. As the human-to-human transmission of the virus worsens, it is recommended that parents take the baby and directly judge the disease first.
In addition to taking medicine, how to properly care for cold symptoms
Regarding the problem of taking medicine for colds, so far, no medicine can prevent the common cold, nor can any medicine cure the cold.
Then some parents asked, why do adults take medicine to catch a cold?
We often say that cold medicine is mainly to alleviate symptoms, and to eliminate the virus that causes the common cold, you have to rely on your own immune system to eliminate.
Therefore, in the process of the child's cold, we only need to pay attention to the specific problems of the child, such as nasal congestion, runny nose, fever and cough, etc., and do a good job of nursing.
01. Nasal congestion, runny nose
If there is no serious impact on the child's eating, sleeping, playing, in fact, there is no need to do anything extra, if the situation is more serious, you can use some home care methods.
Situation A: Children under 1 year old, help the child blow his nose and wipe it clean in time to maintain hygiene.
Nasal congestion can be dripped with saline, or you can buy ready-made nasal drops. After the nose drop, wait for the child to sneeze himself to let the dirty things come out.
Situation B: The child is slightly older and teaches him the correct way to blow his nose. If the nose is congested, you can apply a hot towel to the nose. Leaning forward naturally, press one side of his nostrils with a tissue, and then forcefully blow out the snot on the other side.
Situation C: Proper hydration for children over 6 months old, drinking some water, soup, porridge, etc., will help children dilute their nose and relieve discomfort
Some children make a purring sound when they have a cold, which may be caused by nasal congestion, and when the baby has a cold, there is no more, and there is basically no impact on the body.
02, fever
Folk have always kept a lot of folk remedies, such as warm water baths, warm water scrubbing and other physical cooling methods.
These methods are not recommended, because the child needs to rest when he has a cold, so we will not toss the child, not to mention that there is no clear scientific basis for these methods.
What parents do is to give their children proper hydration, because fever will lead to partial loss of water, there is a risk of dehydration. If the child's fever temperature is greater than 39 ° C, the mental state is not good, or the fever is more than 3 days, it is necessary to seek medical treatment in time.
03. Cough
Coughing is not a bad thing, mainly the body excludes secretions and pathogens outwards, preventing these bad things from entering the lungs. Coughs that do not affect life do not require cough relief.
Medical attention is recommended if the cough exhibits:
Coughing interferes with your child's normal eating
Cough always wakes up at night, difficult to fall asleep;
Coughing causes the child to have shortness of breath and chest pain;
How are parents caring for a coughing child?
1/ Keep the indoor humidity, control at 50-60%, stay away from dryness and stay comfortable
2/ Stay away from smokers, smokers will also have a smoke smell (second-hand smoke) in their clothes, do not let the child go to the kitchen, from the stimulation of oil smoke.
Children over 3/1 year old can eat 2-5ml of honey before going to bed, drink pure on the line (not honey water, remember to brush your teeth after drinking, it can alleviate throat discomfort.
4/ Appropriate intake of liquids: water, soup can be, as long as it is warm, can moisturize the child's respiratory tract, to ensure that the child's daily liquid needs. Rock sugar pear water is of course also available.
Why not recommend medication, tell you at once
Often some parents leave messages saying that seeing their children's colds is particularly uncomfortable, or hope to give their children medicine, so that they can be better and faster, and suffer less guilt.
Today, I will tell my parents about some problems with cold medicine.
Q: Does your child have a cold and need to take medicine?
The principles of cold medication for children are:
Can not use drugs without drugs, can use less drugs and do not use more drugs, can take oral without injection.
Cold medicines on the market (such as aminophenol xanthamine, phenol mememin, mesophene, healing phenenamine, pseudo-mamephene, etc.) are basically palliatives rather than cures the root cause. That is, it can only control the symptoms of fever, cough, runny nose and other symptoms manifested by the cold, and will not shorten the course of the cold.
Whether you take medicine or not, the common cold caused by the virus takes 5-7 days to heal.
Q: Do I need to take anti-inflammatory drugs for a cold? (Antibiotics)
Colds may inflame the throat, eat and swallow pain, do you want to take anti-inflammatory drugs?
Amoxicillin, cephalosporin, ofloxacin, etc.,
These are not actually anti-inflammatory drugs, these are antibiotics.
Antibiotics only work on inflammation caused by bacterial infections! The common cold is caused by viruses, so unless the child has a complicated bacterial infection during the cold, there is no need for antibiotics ("anti-inflammatory drugs").
Fortunately, antibiotic drugs are currently prescription drugs that require a doctor's prescription to be purchased in pharmacies.
Q: If your child has a cold, is his immunity too poor?
The data provided in the "Expert Consensus on the Standardized Diagnosis and Treatment of Common Cold in Chinese Children" shows that children have an average of 5-7 colds per year, so it is common for children under 7 years of age to catch a cold 5-7 times a year.
Especially in winter, children have less outdoor activities, indoor air circulation, and high virus concentrations. A child's immunity is built in a constant struggle with disease. Usually let the child exercise more, and the diet is balanced!
The common cold is a self-healing disease, it is very important to do home care, when necessary, we must also seek medical treatment in time and follow the doctor's instructions to take medication so as not to delay the disease!
Q: If your child has a fever, what medicine should he take?
Fever is one of the body's self-protection mechanisms, a symptom manifested by the body in the process of mobilizing the immune system to fight disease.
Usually
An armpit temperature above 37.2 ° C is defined as fever. 37.3-38 °C is low heat, 38-39 °C is medium heat, 39-40 °C is high fever, and above 40 °C is ultra-high heat.
When your child has a fever, you should give your child more water, so it is always right to drink more hot water. Because water excretion can accelerate the excretion of heat from your child's body. If the child is young, you can feed it a small number of times, not too much at once, otherwise it will increase the burden on the kidneys.
If the underarm temperature of your child exceeds 38.5 ° C, antipyretics may be considered.
The World Health Organization recommends globally that the most effective and least side-effect fever-reducing agents for children with fever are acetaminophen and ibuprofen. The specific use method can refer to the instructions or follow the doctor's advice.
Here we would like to remind parents that if your child has a fever for more than 3 consecutive days, or exceeds 39 ° C, please seek medical attention immediately.