Is a baby cough dangerous? What to do when the baby coughs?

How do babies with cough need care to get better? Please refer to some information below to help you get well soon!

Symptoms when babies have a cough

First of all, mothers need to understand that cough is not a medical condition but the way the body responds to factors from the outside environment, which play a role in helping the airways clear.

There are 2 main types of cough:

Babies with dry cough: A cough symptom that does not produce phlegm or mucus, usually when the baby has a cold or an allergy.

Newborn baby with expectorant cough is the result of a respiratory illness accompanied by infection. This causes phlegm or mucus (which contain white blood cells that help fight germs) to form in your baby's airways.

Are babies with a cough? Most of the time, the cough is usually caused by a cold. Children under 4 months of age usually do not cough much. If the child coughs a lot, parents need to pay more attention to take care of the baby. Especially if the baby coughs a lot in the winter, it could be due to the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a dangerous viral infection for infants. When a baby older than 1 year has a cough, this is less alarming.

 

Infants have a cough because their body responds to external factors - Shutterstock illustration

Common types of cough in babies

1. Cough due to a cold

Infants have signs of coughing and symptoms associated with a cough caused by a cold or the flu include a stuffy or runny nose and sore throat. Babies often have a dry cough, but depending on the severity of the cold, your baby may cough with phlegm with a mild fever at night.

2. Cough due to a sore throat

Babies often cough a lot, especially at night and near morning. The cough usually lasts accompanying wheeze. The reason is that the virus causes the infection that causes the tracheal lining to swell and close the airways, so babies often have difficulty breathing.

It usually occurs in children under 5 years old and usually begins with a cold.

3. Cough due to bronchitis

Children often cough, wheeze and sometimes have difficulty breathing. Bronchitis comes after the basic signs of a cold such as a cough and runny nose. Wheezing or spasm of the airways can be caused by many different causes, including environmental factors such as dust.

The majority of bronchitis cases in children under 1 year old are caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). This virus causes simple colds in children older than 3 years, but it can enter the lungs of infants and can even be life-threatening,

Wheezing is a symptom of both bronchitis and asthma, making it difficult to distinguish. However, bronchitis is more common in the fall and winter and can cause a baby to have a mild fever and stop feeding.

4. Whooping cough

The baby's cough is coughing in successive sequences, getting faster and weaker and weaker, then there is a stage of deep inhalation that sounds like a chicken crowing.

Is pertussis infant dangerous? Whooping cough is a potentially life-threatening bacterial infection that was the leading cause of illness and death in infants until the DTP vaccine was created in the 1960s and the disease was near has been completely ruled out.

However, there have been times when the disease has returned and there have been many outbreaks. Most cases of pertussis have no obvious cold or fever symptoms. Whooping cough symptoms include:

Low-grade fever, runny nose,

Dry cough often causes tongue to stick out, eyes bulge, skin discoloration, veins of the neck floating, watery eyes, runny nose,

After each cough, the child may be tired, may vomiting, rapid breathing,

In severe cases, children may develop seizures

5. Cough due to pneumonia

Pneumonia is an infection caused by viruses or bacteria in the lungs for a number of reasons, including the common cold. Symptoms and signs that a baby with pneumonia are fatigue and have a cough with green or yellow phlegm, poor feeding or skipping feeding with fever over 37.5 degrees Celsius or hypothermia.

6. Cough due to asthma

Children with coughing from asthma often make a wheezing sound in their throat. Asthma is uncommon in children under 2 years of age, unless they have eczema and a family history of allergies and asthma, doctors say. This is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways.

This inflammation makes the airways very sensitive to various stimulants. When exposed to these stimulants, the baby has a wheezing cough, difficulty breathing (shortness of breath, chest twitching, neck muscles spasm, nasal flaring ... even convulsions.

Unfortunately, to date there is no test or test that can diagnose infant asthma. Wheezing is not necessarily a sign of asthma.

Usually wheezing infants are often thought to have respiratory illnesses. The baby also cannot have a pulmonary function test because it is too young. Families need to care for and observe the child regularly to know the cause of the baby's wheezing.

Note when taking care of a baby with a cough

What to do when babies have a cough? Parents should take the following notes when seeing babies with a cough:

 

Taking care of a newborn with a cough - Shutterstock illustrations

Always keep the baby warm, wear warm enough clothes, don't let the air conditioner get too cold

Reduce your child's fever by an active warm compressing a clean towel and warm water

Keep the bedroom clean, the places where the baby is often present, and clean the baby's toys

Breastfeed on demand, divided into several meals a day and a smaller amount of each meal than usual

What to do to stop a newborn cough

What to do when a baby cough? When a child has a mild cough, first of all, give priority to child care and treatment measures without using drugs such as saline drops in the nose, breastfeeding more, using air humidifiers and raise the baby's head while lying down.

However, the above measures are only applied when the baby has a mild cough.

When to take my baby to the doctor?

Take your baby to the doctor if he or she has one of the following signs:

Trẻ nhỏ dưới 4 tuổi bị ho, cho dù là bất cứ loại ho nào

Ho khan do cảm lạnh (sổ mũi nhưng không sốt) kéo dài từ năm ngày trở lên

Ho khan hoặc có đờm kèm theo cảm lạnh và sốt từ 38 độ trở lên

Trẻ ho nhiều, khò khè

Quấy khóc không ngừng

Ho không ngừng, không thể kiểm soát được hơi thở của mình

Bé lên cơn co giật

Đối với các trường hợp trẻ bị nặng hơn, cha mẹ nên tham khảo ý kiến của bác sĩ trước khi mua thuốc về điều trị cho bé. Đặc biệt hiện nay, tình hình kháng thuốc xảy ra khá phổ biến, nguyên nhân chính là do thói quen tự cho trẻ dùng thuốc của nhiều vị phụ huynh. Việc tự ý cho bé dùng thuốc có thể dẫn đến những tác hại khôn lường, đôi khi còn đe dọa đến tính mạng trẻ sơ sinh.

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