How to control cough in child
Home Remedies for Cough in Kids – Children's Health
Home remedies for cough in kids
Children’s Health Dec 5, 2018, 10:02:24 AM CST Mar 7, 2023, 2:20:16 PM CSTOver-the-counter cough and cold medicines are not recommended for young children. Learn how to soothe your child's symptoms naturally with these home cough remedies.
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If your child seems to be coughing constantly, it can be concerning. Typically, a child's cough is nothing to worry about. Many times, it can be caused by a common cold or even by allergies.
Because over-the-counter cough and cold medicines are not recommended for children under the age of 6 years, it can be challenging to know how to help your child feel comfortable – especially if a cough is keeping them up at night. See seven ways you can treat your child's cough at home.
Home remedies to help soothe a child's cough
- Drink warm fluids: Encourage your child to drink plenty of fluids.
Warm liquids such as caffeine-free tea, broth or hot water with lemon can help loosen up mucus and soothe a sore throat.
- Consider using a humidifier: Dry air can make a child's cough worse. Consider placing a cool-mist humidifier in your child's room, near where they sleep, to help ease their breathing.
- Breathe in warm water vapors: Let your child breathe in water vapors from a warm bath or shower. This can help loosen mucus and, as a bonus, calm your child before bed.
- Try icy treats: Give your child cold items like popsicles or ice cream to make a hurting throat feel better.
- Saline and suction: A saline solution, such as a nose spray or mist, can help loosen mucus in the nose. Have your child blow their nose frequently, or if they are young, use a suction bulb to prevent drainage.
- Give a spoonful of honey (over age 1): A teaspoon of honey can help combat coughing but should only be given to children over age 1.
- Get some zzz's: Encourage your to child get plenty of rest and sleep to promote healing. While coughing may seem aggravated at night, the above tips may help your child find relief.
Remember, it can take a couple of weeks for a child to recover from a cold. However, if your child's cough continues to linger, is accompanied by symptoms such as a high fever or difficulty breathing, or you are concerned that it may be a sign of a more serious illness (see other common causes of coughs in children), contact your child's pediatrician as soon as possible.
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Childrens HealthCoughs: Meds or Home Remedies?
Medicines (OTC)
Over-the-Counter (OTC) cough and cold medicines can cause side effects. These side effects can be serious in young children. The risks of using these medicines outweigh any benefits. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends these medicines never be used in young children.
After age 6, the medicines are safe to use, if you follow the package instructions. But, it's easy to treat coughs and colds without these medicines.
Home Remedies:
A good home remedy is safe, cheap, and as helpful as OTC medicines. They are also found in nearly every home. Here are some simple but helpful home treatments.
1. Runny Nose: Just suction it or blow it. Teach your child how to blow the nose at age 2 or 3. When your child's nose runs like a faucet, it's getting rid of viruses. Allergy medicines (such as Benadryl) do not help the average cold. They are useful only if your child has nasal allergies (hay fever).
2. Blocked Nose: Use nasal saline.
- Use saline (salt water) nose drops or spray to loosen up the dried mucus. If you don't have saline, you can use a few drops of water. Use distilled water, bottled water or boiled tap water.
- Step 1: Put 3 drops in each nostril. If age under 1 year old, use 1 drop.
- Step 2: Blow (or suction) each nostril separately, while closing off the other nostril. Then do other side.
- Step 3: Repeat nose drops and blowing (or suctioning) until the discharge is clear.
- How Often: Do nasal saline rinses when your child can't breathe through the nose. Limit: If under 1 year old, no more than 4 times per day or before every feeding.
- Saline nose drops or spray can be bought in any drugstore. No prescription is needed.
- Reason for nose drops: Suction or blowing alone can't remove dried or sticky mucus. Also, babies can't nurse or drink from a bottle unless the nose is open.
- Other option: use a warm shower to loosen mucus. Breathe in the moist air, then blow (or suction) each nostril.
- For young children, can also use a wet cotton swab to remove sticky mucus.
- Medicines. There are no drugs that can remove dried mucus from the nose.
3. Coughing: Use homemade cough medicines.
- Age 6 months to 1 year. Give warm clear fluids (such as apple juice or lemonade). Dose: 1-2 teaspoons (5-10 mL) four times per day when coughing. Under 3 months, see your child's doctor. Caution: Do not use honey until 1 year old.
- Age 1 year and older. Use Honey ½ to 1 teaspoon (2 to 5 mL) as needed. It thins the secretions and loosens the cough. If you don't have honey, you can use corn syrup. Research shows that honey works better than cough syrups to reduce nighttime coughing. Can also offer warm lemonade or herbal teas. Amount: a few ounces (30 mL) each time.
- Age 6 years and older. Use Cough Drops to decrease the tickle in the throat. If you don't have any, you can use hard candy. Avoid cough drops before 6 years. Reason: risk of choking.
- Coughing fits. The warm mist from a shower can help.
4. Fluids: Help your child drink lots of fluids. Staying well hydrated thins the body's secretions. That makes it easier to cough and blow the nose.
5. Humidity: If the air in your home is dry, use a humidifier. Moist air keeps the nose and airway from drying out. Run a warm shower for a while to help put moisture in the air.
Treatment is Not Always Needed:
- If symptoms aren't bothering your child, they don't need medicine or any treatment. Many children with a cough or cold are happy, play fine and sleep well.
- Only treat symptoms if they cause discomfort or wake your child up. Treat a cough if it's hacking and really bothers your child.
- Fevers are helpful. Only treat them if they slow your child down or cause some discomfort. That does not occur until 102° F (39° C) or higher. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin or Advil) can be given. Use to treat higher fever or pain. See Dose tables.
Summary
If coughs or colds need treatment, home remedies may work better than medicines.
If your child’s illness or injury is life-threatening, call 911.
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Last Reviewed: 04/23/2023
Last Revised: 12/30/2022
Copyright 2000-2023 Schmitt Pediatric Guidelines LLC.
How to cure a cough in a child | Home treatment of cough in children
Contents:
Cough massage for children
Cough in children can be a symptom of a variety of respiratory diseases: from ARI to pneumonia.
Therefore, if a child has a cough, then the methods of its treatment will depend on many factors. After all, alleviating this condition should include eliminating the cause of coughing, treating the underlying disease in the child and preventing possible complications. At its core, coughing is a natural defense mechanism designed to remove irritants, pathogens and accumulated mucus from the respiratory tract. For this reason, often the main goal in the treatment of cough in children is to increase its productivity for easy sputum production.
Cough Massage for Children
A fairly simple chest massage can be done to relieve sputum in children, which is easy to perform at home.
Massage will improve:
- blood circulation in the back and chest of the child,
- facilitates the removal of sputum from the bronchi and helps to cough it up easily
- is an excellent addition to the main treatment!
Do not forget to consult your doctor before performing a massage.
More
Breathing exercises for children
Breathing exercises are one of the important home remedies for respiratory diseases in children. A small complex, taking 5-10 minutes a day, will quickly improve the ventilation of the child's lungs, increase sputum separation and excretion, and also prevent complications.
Let's depict a beetle: starting position sitting, hands on the belt. Turn the body to the left with the withdrawal of the left hand back and to the side. On the exhale, returning to the I.P., hum the sound “Zh-zh-zh” for a long time. Repeat for the right side. The number of repetitions in each direction is 4-5 times.
Crow like a crow: starting position sitting. While inhaling, raise your arms up and to the sides. As you exhale, lower your hands down, say “Ka-r-r” loudly. Repeat 5 times.
Let's show the goose: the starting position is sitting, bending down to the knees and raising the palms to the shoulders. Take a deep breath, as you exhale loudly say "Ha-ah.
" Repeat 5 times.
Before performing breathing exercises, it is better to coordinate it with the pediatrician.
Warm drink
Warm drink, given in sufficient quantities to the child, improves the excretion of sputum from the bronchi, and also relieves intoxication caused by the vital activity of viruses and bacteria.0051 o C weak black or herbal tea, still mineral water and milk.
Medicines
Dr. MOM ® Cough Syrup, based on herbal medicinal ingredients, helps to relieve cough in a child. Thanks to the use of natural ingredients, the syrup can be used to treat dry cough in children from 3 years of age. This remedy, taken ½-1 teaspoon 3 times a day, helps to improve the separation of mucus and its removal from the bronchi.
Ointment Doctor MOM ® Phyto is another cough remedy. The irritating and anti-inflammatory effect of the essential oils included in the ointment formulation is aimed at eliminating nasal congestion, headaches and muscle pain.
This tool can be used to treat children from the age of 3 years.
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How to treat a wet cough in children?
Causes of cough in children
Treat dry cough in a child
Parents are very sensitive to the health of their children and go to the doctor for any, even the slightest, reason. And rightly so, since in childhood even minor ailments can soon develop into a dangerous disease. An example of such a symptom in a child is a dry cough. It occurs quite often, so it is useful for parents to know what causes a cough and how to treat it properly. A dry cough is characterized by the fact that a secret ceases to be secreted in the airways (a substance that “lubricates” the throat), or the cough has a high viscosity, as in pneumonia. In addition, dry cough is caused by dirt or a foreign body entering the respiratory tract, swelling of the vocal cords, or narrowing of the lumen of the bronchi during their spasm.
Causes of dry cough
Doctors identify several causes of dry cough in children.
- Cough with inflammation of the vocal cords. With this pathology, the lumen of the glottis decreases in a person. As a result, a dry cough can be either loud and harsh (a "barking" cough) or, conversely, very quiet. Inflammation of the vocal cords in medicine is called laryngitis and usually appears due to damage to the vocal cords by a viral or other infection. Laryngitis can also appear without the influence of microbes - for example, the ligaments become inflamed when inhaled vapors of harmful substances, with allergies, or even with a loud cry.
- Bacterial infection. They are dangerous because dry cough is just one of the many signs of exposure to the body. Diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough and some others infect the entire body with toxins, causing a lot of trouble for a person, and in especially severe cases, leading to the death of the patient. These diseases lead to swelling of the tissues of the child's respiratory tract, accumulation of sputum in the bronchi, inflammation of the lymph nodes and other pathologies.
From this, the patient begins to cough reflexively, and his cough can be both dry and with a large amount of sputum, which is difficult to excrete from the body. - SARS. One of the most common causes of dry cough in a child. Viruses enter the respiratory tract by airborne droplets, where they infect cells that soon die. This leads to irritation of the receptors in the throat, and a strong dry cough begins in a person. There are several varieties of respiratory tract infections, each with its own type of cough. For example, the most "upper" cough is observed with pharyngitis, when the pharynx is affected. Tracheitis is accompanied by irritation of receptors in the trachea, bronchitis - in the bronchi, and pneumonia, which is otherwise called pneumonia, is most difficult to tolerate.
- Pleurisy (inflammation of the pleura). Inflammation of the lining of the lungs can also be the cause of reflex dry cough in children and adults.
- Allergic reactions.
Another well-known cause of developing dry cough. An allergy can be recognized by its seasonal nature, as well as by the absence of other severe symptoms, such as fever. But if, simultaneously with a cough, a child has a severe runny nose and tearing, then it is possible to speak with a high degree of certainty about allergies. As a rule, it worsens in spring or autumn. Most often, children are allergic to pollen and pet dander. - Gastroesophageal reflux. This term hides such an unusual pathology as the reverse flow of the contents of internal organs. In this case, we are talking about cases where gastric juice "rises" through the esophagus and enters the mouth or windpipe, causing coughing. As a rule, reflux appears after eating and in a supine position.
- Rare causes. They are not so common, but, nevertheless, they can be the cause of the development of dry cough. These include inflammation of the bronchial lymph nodes, lung tumors, inflammation of the respiratory tract, aortic aneurysm, and some types of heart defects.
Treatment of dry cough in a child
Treatment of children is always more difficult than treatment of adults, and the situation with dry cough is no exception. Moreover, children under two years of age should not be given medication at all due to the high likelihood of overdose. Older children can be given drugs that fight the cough reflex, but for very young patients, other methods should be used to reduce irritation of receptors in the airways.
In any case, when choosing a drug, you need to carefully study the instructions for possible side effects. Usually, dry cough remedies are characterized by weakness, dizziness, and drowsiness that may occur after taking them. Therefore, doctors prescribe taking such drugs before bedtime.
It is important to know that, in addition to these side effects, drugs must be compatible with other drugs and must not have contraindications for each patient. You can not treat a dry cough in a child on your own, because in this case there is a high risk of harming him.
Parents should take their child to the doctor at the first sign of a dry cough for an examination and treatment. The drugs that are used for this effectively relieve the child of irritation of the respiratory tract for up to 12 hours.
For home treatment, your doctor may recommend steam inhalation. In this case, you should always use additional air humidification to make the steam cooler. In this case, the swelling of the airways subsides, they “open” and eliminate irritation in the throat.
A good medicine is made from a mixture of a spoonful of honey and a spoonful of lemon juice, which should be used when a dry cough worsens. And if the disease is infectious, then to speed up the metabolism and remove toxins from the body, the child should be given plenty of fluids, hot tea and chicken broth. Cough drops can be given from the age of four; from about the same time, you can teach a child to rinse the rod with warm salted water.
Traditional recipes for cough control
Traditional medicines can also be useful in the treatment of dry cough in a child.
In addition, many of them are also delicious, which children cannot but like. Here are just a few of them:
- Add black radish juice to honey and take one tablespoon. However, parents need to be careful, as children often have allergies to these products.
- Boil the syrup in a spoon with sugar until it turns dark yellow (the color of burnt sugar). Then it must be diluted in water to make caramel candy. This is not only a useful remedy for dry cough, but also very tasty.
- And this cough remedy is not so tasty anymore, but it is very effective. A glass of milk should be poured into a small saucepan and put a small onion there. When the onion is cooked, the milk should be filtered and slightly cooled, but it should be drunk warm.
- A good remedy for dry cough is medicinal tea, or rather, a decoction of herbs. They include peppermint, thyme, licorice root, coltsfoot, wild rosemary and marshmallow. You can either brew all the herbs together at once, or make various combinations of them.
As for the daily routine, a small organism needs to be provided with complete rest in the form of bed rest. From the diet you need to exclude spicy dishes and in general any seasonings. And once again we repeat that at the first signs of malaise and dry cough, you need to seek help from a pediatrician.
Child care
The child's room must be at a comfortable room temperature. Humidity should be slightly above average, as dry air provokes coughing fits. For this purpose, it is necessary to wipe the floor more often with a wet cloth and wipe the dust. You can put a bucket or pots of water in the room. You should also protect the child from the smell of smoke (especially dangerous tobacco smoke) and in general any smell.
Diet for children should be sparing. Dishes should be light and not burdensome for the gastrointestinal tract. Ideal for the treatment of dry cough jelly, jelly, fruit puree or potatoes with ghee. All meals should be low-calorie, and drinks - with a slightly elevated pH (that is, slightly alkaline).
These include still mineral water, warm tea and milk.
You can also give your child steam inhalations. They can be either prescribed by a doctor (inhaling a decoction of herbs), or simply performed by inhaling hot, moist air in a closed bathroom. It will also be useful to apply warm compresses in order to relieve swelling from the respiratory tract. To do this, you need to put the compress on the chest, and after removing it, immediately dress the child warmly and hide him under the covers.
Dry cough without fever
In some cases, dry cough occurs without fever or other signs that may indicate an allergy or infection. The reason may be simple: the usual ingestion of a foreign object in the throat causes a strong dry cough. Moreover, irritants are different - from ordinary fine dust to toys. Such a dry cough develops rapidly and is often accompanied by suffocation. To get rid of this problem, you need to act quickly, but carefully so as not to frighten the child.
Parents should place their child face down on their lap. Then, with gentle blows between the shoulder blades, a foreign object should be “knocked out” from the windpipe. When the object falls out, the child still needs to be shown to the doctor to determine possible damage to the respiratory tract. It happens that infants cough heavily after sleep. There is nothing wrong with such a dry cough, since in this way the child gets rid of sputum that has accumulated in the airways during the night.
If a child's dry cough does not go away after home methods, it should be shown to a specialist doctor - an otolaryngologist. Most likely, this doctor will appoint consultations with other specialists - a pulmonologist and a phthisiatrician. In addition, a set of studies and analyzes will be required to identify the causes of dry cough, since it can be caused by dangerous pathogens that require immediate treatment. In the spring and autumn periods, a prolonged dry cough may be the result of worms or an allergic reaction of the body.
