Two days ago, our editor saw a mother complaining in the group of mothers, saying that her baby coughed and did not know whether to give the baby antibiotics.
It seems to be necessary to eat, but it seems that it cannot be eaten. It is very tangled.
Regarding the baby’s cough, whether to take medicine or not, the family could not argue over this matter. The mother felt that the cough was fine, while the old man felt that the cough would be more serious if he did not take medicine, dragging it into pneumonia.
If you cough for a long time, will it drag you into pneumonia? If you don’t take medicine, will your baby’s cough be more serious?
Today, we invited Zhuang Ruidan, a pediatrician from Clove Clinic, to give you a good talk about cough.
Cough is a symptom, not a disease
In life, many mothers may think that the baby has a cold when they hear the baby cough.
Cold is the most common cause of cough in children.
However, in addition to colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, choking cough of foreign bodies, irritating smoke smell, etc. can cause cough of babies.
However, no matter whether the baby coughs due to what, the baby will start coughing, which is actually cleaning up irritants in the respiratory tract and belongs to a protective mechanism of the human body.
Therefore, mothers should not be too nervous about the symptom of cough, let alone use cough medicine to relieve cough as soon as they have cough.
If you cough without taking medicine, it will drag you into pneumonia?
This is one of the most common rumors and logical misunderstandings.
The truth is: cough does not lead to pneumonia, pneumonia leads to cough.
The mothers may have to say, no, my child coughed and dragged on, so I took him to the hospital for examination and found pneumonia. Isn’t it pneumonia caused by dragging on the cough?
As we have already said, cough is actually only a symptom.
It’s like you cut a hole in your hand and bleed. You must know that the bleeding is caused by a broken hand. It is impossible to think that the wound is caused by blood.
The same is true of the relationship between cough and pneumonia.
Cough and drug abuse are harmful to children.
Children under 4 years old should not use cough medicine.
Cough is a protective reflex. If cough is not so serious, it is not a good thing to leave some secretions and foreign bodies that should have been discharged in the airway.
These drugs may also have the risk of respiratory depression, which may lead to death in serious cases.
It is recommended to use cough medicine at least 4 ~ 6 years old.
Many antitussive drugs also contain addictive antitussive ingredients. Some antitussive drugs in Chinese patent medicines contain poppy shells, and the effective ingredients are codeine, such as Qiangli Pipa Dew, Compound Glycyrrhiza Oral Medicine, etc.
Therefore, it is not recommended to give it to children.
Abuse of antibiotics to relieve cough will leave children [with no medicine to cure]
Cough is most common in colds, and more than 90% of colds are viral infections. Among them, there is no specific drug for other viruses except oseltamivir, which has specific effects on influenza viruses.
Antibiotics are only aimed at bacteria, mycoplasma and other infections, and are ineffective for virus infections, so most coughs do not require antibiotics.
There are also many non-infectious causes of cough, such as cough variant asthma and upper airway cough, which generally do not require antibiotics. The consequence of continuous abuse of antibiotics is to create a terrible monster-superbacteria.
Superbacteria refer to pathogens with multiple drug resistance, that is, they use many antibiotics but cannot kill them.
In short, infection with superbacteria is close to [no medicine can be cured].
Therefore, mothers really can’t give their children antibiotics to relieve cough.
Drug abuse will cover up the real cause of the disease.
There was a 14-month-old child with runny nose and cough for 10 days. On the first day, he took azithromycin orally for 3 days due to fever. His body temperature quickly faded, but the symptoms of clear nose, cough and phlegm did not improve.
After coming to our clinic to see a doctor, I found that my brother had [allergic rhinitis], which was often manifested as nasal mucus and cough. My mother felt that my brother’s symptoms were very similar to those of my brother. After we used antiallergic drugs, the symptoms gradually improved.
If you don’t find the real cause of cough and blindly use drugs, the truth will be covered up and you don’t know.
This kind of care is the most reliable for children coughing.
When a child has a cough caused by a cold, there is no drug that can prevent the disease from changing, and it is mainly necessary to deal with it in time when the disease progresses.
Children need to see a doctor in time if they have the following symptoms:
· Severe cough
· Shortness of breath
· Dyspnea
· Lack of spirit or irritability
· Extremely long cough time: cough lasts for more than 4 weeks
If the child’s cough is not serious, you can observe it first and take care of it at home:
1. Keep the environment moist;
2. Try to avoid tobacco, whether secondhand smoke or third-hand smoke;
3. Ventilate frequently when the outdoor air is in good condition;
4. Drink more water. It is generally recommended to drink warm boiled water. If it is exclusively breast-fed babies under 6 months old, just feed more breast milk.
5. Do normal saline atomization. If mothers do not have atomization devices in their homes, they can also try bathroom steam, and it is also possible to stay in the bathroom full of warm and humid steam for 5-10 minutes.
For children over 1 year old, irritant dry cough can be relieved by oral honey.
There are some children who are allergic and eat certain foods during cough, such as milk and seafood, which will aggravate the cough, so it is recommended to avoid it for the time being. If your child’s cough has not changed significantly before and after eating these foods, then there is no need to avoid eating them.
In a word, ten colds and nine coughs are all caused by common virus infection. You can get well without taking medicine. Blind medication is equivalent to [hiding your ears and stealing the bell]. Ignoring the cause of the real cough will also put children at risk of over-medication, which will do more harm than good.