A coughing baby is always a reason for parents to worry. Although a child who is sick, but not coughing, should cause much more concern, because the type of cough can determine the diagnosis, and also understand whether it is easy for the baby to cough up or not.
Coughing baby
Cough values for the body
A cough is not just a sign of illness. With its help, adults and children clean the upper and lower respiratory tract. During the day, a child can cough for several reasons:
- inflammation develops;
- a foreign body got caught (choked);
- mucus flows from the nose along the back of the throat, irritating the cough receptors;
- an allergic reaction develops;
- the air that the child breathes is dry and dusty (or smoky).
Foreign body is the cause of cough
Depending on what caused the cough, parents need to choose behavior tactics. Any cough should be treated not as a terrible symptom, but as a useful reflex that clears the respiratory tract of irritants.
On the walls of the pharynx and larynx, special cough receptors are located, which, reacting to the slightest irritation, trigger the coughing mechanism only in order to expel a foreign substance. There is also a cough center in the brain of every person, which is irritated for two reasons: from toxins released by disease-causing bacteria, and by a signal from the cough receptors of the respiratory tract.
Types of cough
You can divide a cough into groups, relying either on its quality, or on the reason that provokes it. Most often, when a doctor asks what kind of cough is tormenting a child, he is interested in the quality: whether it is dry or wet, because if the cough is dry, you must definitely take measures to make it wet. If the cough is wet, it is enough to prevent it from turning dry.
The moisture of the cough is determined by sound. If the child coughs with prolonged and ringing attacks, which are repeated one after the other, without bringing relief, this is a dry cough. More often than not, it pulls at the throat and prevents sleep at night. These attacks occur either with inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, manifested by red and swollen glands, or with bronchitis, when the sputum is dry and has lost the ability to freely exit.
If the cough is dry, it arose suddenly, without accompanying symptoms, it is worth suspecting the ingress of a foreign body into the respiratory tract. It is important to understand that coughing in this case is the most effective way to expel a foreign body from the body.
Attention! If a child, choking, can cough, he should not be disturbed by tapping on the back and asking to open his mouth.
Self-coughing is more important than massage
Danger of coughing for babies
Babies rarely get viral or bacterial infections. A month's cough most often occurs against the background of choking milk or due to dry air in the room. If a nursing baby is really sick, there is a certain danger. This is due to the fact that the tissues of the pharynx and trachea are abundantly lined with thin capillaries and vessels. When inflammation occurs, edema instantly forms, which can block the lumen of the pharynx, blocking the passage of air. Therefore, any inflammatory process threatens with suffocation.
Important! Any cough in a baby requires a mandatory examination by a doctor.
The benefits of coughing up
When an inflammatory process occurs due to a viral or bacterial infection, the volume of sputum secreted by the bronchi significantly increases. If the child does not cough, phlegm accumulates in the bronchi and lungs, becoming a favorable environment for bacteria to multiply. It is the accumulation of sputum in the lungs that causes pneumonia. For any respiratory illness, the child should be able to cough.
A popular pediatrician, Evgeny Komarovsky, is sure that if a one-year-old child with an intact general condition coughs from time to time, the problem is not in the baby's health, but in the quality of the air he breathes.
Causes of Difficulty Coughing
In order for the sputum to easily move away from the walls of the bronchi and lungs, it should not be thick. Therefore, it is important to ensure that two important conditions are met to help cough:
- The air in the room should be humid and cool (no warmer than + 20˚C, humidified up to 60%).
- A child over 6 months should drink plenty of warm fluids.
Providing these two parameters is much more important than any drugs and folk methods that seek to teach how to make a child cough. Dried phlegm that has accumulated in the airways interferes with normal inhalation and gas exchange. It significantly increases the duration of the course of the disease and threatens with obstruction and other dangerous complications. The task of parents is not to persuade the child to cough up phlegm, but to provide the body with favorable conditions for its discharge.
Airing the nursery
The temperature of the drink that you need to water the child should be close to body temperature. If the baby has a fever, the compote should be warmed up to 38˚C. If hyperthermia is not observed, the temperature of the drink may be 36˚C.
Helping the baby to cough up easier
There are situations when the child himself cannot cough up. The reason may be a weak cough reflex, due to which the cilia covering the tissues hardly react to the presence of an irritant in the form of sputum. In such cases, doctors prescribe a special massage that the mother herself can do. Such massages are not recommended to be carried out later than two hours before bedtime, because the movement of sputum along the respiratory tract will not let the child or his parents fall asleep.
Preparation for massage
To prepare for the massage you will need:
- prepare oil or cream to moisturize the baby's back, it will reduce friction and relieve discomfort;
- roll the towel into a roller;
- Wash the hands.
In order to start the massage, at least an hour must pass after the last feeding, otherwise everything that the baby has eaten, he will certainly vomit. On a prepared flat surface, you will need to put a towel roller, and lay the child on it with his stomach down. It is important to ensure such a position of the body in which the butt is higher than the head.
Having lubricated your hands and back with the selected oil or cream, you need to make massaging movements in the direction from the lower back to the head. The vibrations from the massage will make the phlegm move in a given direction. For children over a year old, massage can be supplemented with light tapping performed with the edge of the palms to the right and left of the spine. Frequent and light patting should also move from the lower back to the head.
Important! Massage, which decides how to make an infant cough, can be performed only if the baby's general condition is not disturbed: the temperature is not elevated, there is no weakness, and only when he is not able to cough himself.
Reasons to call a doctor
Any sane parent should understand that calling a doctor is a must, as soon as the baby coughed, sneezed, and other signs of acute respiratory infections appeared:
- increased body temperature;
- lethargy;
- refusal to eat;
- capriciousness.
Children of the first year of life are especially susceptible to the danger of suffocation, therefore, there can be no self-medication without a diagnosis by a qualified specialist. It is unacceptable to thoughtlessly force the baby to cough up phlegm without knowing the reason for the disorder in the child's condition, because if the cough is bacterial, a set of special measures is needed, including the mandatory intake of antibacterial drugs. With some diagnoses, even an hour cannot be lost thinking about the need for medical attention.
The child's health is the responsibility of the parents. Love for a child is measured not by the number of toys donated and the cost of a stroller, but by the desire to provide comfortable conditions for a small organism. Airing the room, dressing without unnecessary layers and unnecessary accessories, long walks are the best that parents can give their baby.
