If the infant has coughing, treatment is required to start with a call to the doctor. The baby's body is very delicate, the metabolic processes in it are accelerated. A moderate inflammatory process sometimes quickly turns into an acute condition. When deciding what and how to better treat a cough in a newborn child, it is necessary to determine the cause of its occurrence. The most common cause of a cough can be:
- ARVI;
- Allergic reaction;
- Inflammation of the larynx;
- Ingress of a foreign body into the respiratory tract or their clogging with liquid;
- Bronchospasm.
After the pediatrician determines the nature of the cough, he can advise parents to combine the use of traditional therapy and treatment with alternative methods. This speeds up the healing process and does not have many side effects.
Traditional methods of treating cough in children under one year old
As an alternative to cough medicine, there are folk remedies for treating infants, which must be used wisely so as not to aggravate the situation with self-medication.
First and foremost – you should not do warming up and put mustard plasters if the baby has a fever.
Infants up to 2 months of age onion jam will quickly help get rid of cough. Give half a teaspoon every hour.
Herbs to fight cough
The use of herbs in the form of decoctions for the treatment of infants is possible from 2 months.
Mother and stepmothers and plantain
From 4 months old baby you can give herbal decoction, made up of coltsfoot and plantain. It is made as follows: a tablespoon of raw materials is poured with a glass of boiling water, insisted in a thermos or a warm place for 2 hours, and given to the child before meals - 2 tablespoons each - for 15 minutes. The mixture has expectorant properties. If the child has an emetic effect after it, then the dosage should be reduced.
Licorice, elecampane and marshmallow
Also has a good effect liquorice root... It is recommended to use it in combination with elecampane and marshmallow.
All three roots are mixed in equal amounts. Take 1 tablespoon of the resulting mixture and pour 500 ml of cold boiled water. Insisted for 8 hours. Give the child 2-3 times a day, 50 grams
Warming compresses
For children under 2 months of age, the following recipes will help speed up the healing process.
- Honey compresses. Honey cake is kneaded on the basis of honey, adding flour and vegetable oil to it. The cake should be thick enough so that it does not spread after being placed on the baby's chest. Some parents add mustard powder to the cake, but it can irritate the delicate baby skin. From 4 months old, mustard can already be used without restrictions.
- You can warm up your baby by putting a camphor oil compress on him.
- A compress of mashed potatoes is used to warm up the baby.
- The baby's breast is rubbed with badger fat and insulated with a gauze compress.
Compresses do this:
- Diaper in several layers;
- Medicinal product;
- Another diaper;
- Polyethylene layer;
- Fastening tour with gauze or diaper folded at an angle.
Exception: badger fat or camphor oil - the breast is rubbed directly with these substances.
All warming compresses for the child are placed on the chest area. If the compresses are placed on the back and chest at the same time, there is a risk of provoking the development of pneumonia.
Badger fat can be used to rub not only the baby's chest, but also the feet. Rubbing with badger fat allows you to speed up the process of sputum discharge, if any. In the case when the baby suffers from a dry cough, it is possible that the air in the room is too dry and should be additionally humidified.
(See article on dry cough in infants)
Inhalation for baby
It is possible to alleviate the condition of a child under 2 months of age who has a dry cough with the help of passive inhalation. It is done like this. Boiling water is poured into the bath, and they are waiting for the room to be heated by steam. A coughing infant is inhaled for about 5 minutes. If the aroma of eucalyptus essential oil does not cause an allergic reaction in the child, then you can add a few drops of this oil to the water.
Massage
In addition to decoctions, compresses and inhalations, the use of massage is effective - with gentle patting and tapping, the chest and feet of the child are massaged. A massage with herbal balms will increase the effectiveness of the treatment. The use of massage improves the discharge of phlegm.
Holding the baby in your arms and patting gently on the back also improves bronchial drainage.
A few tips
- It is not recommended to limit the child's mobility, this can provoke sputum stagnation.
- Before using folk recipes in the treatment of babies, you should consult your doctor.
- Warming procedures are used only when children have no fever.
- In addition to the described remedies, you can bathe the child in various herbs, for example, it has a good effect thyme.
Thus, there is not always a need to load a fragile baby's body exclusively with medicines; you can additionally use proven and effective recipes of traditional medicine, which are used by more than one generation of mothers.
Read more on the topic of cough
- About a wet cough in a baby
- A child's cough during sleep: 5 most reasons
- Cough without fever and runny nose
- About bronchitis
