What to do when a child has a cold?

What to do if your child has a cold? Many parents ask themselves this question at the first symptoms of illness. After all, you always want your child not to get sick, or if he or she gets sick, to recover quickly. There are many folk and medicinal remedies aimed not only at treating colds, but also at prevention.

The treatment protocol

When speaking about the word cold, it is meant that it is any disease of viral etiology that occurs after hypothermia and with inevitable contact with the virus. A cold is not a feeling of cold, after which symptoms appear. Hypothermia is just a reason for the child's defenses to decrease and he becomes more vulnerable to the action of pathogenic viruses and bacteria. The cold itself can be accompanied by a viral infection of any kind - adenovirus infection, respiratory syncytial, rhinovirus. Therefore, the manifestations of a cold can be in the form of a simple runny nose or cough, sore throat, pharyngitis and other symptoms.

Parents always want their child to get sick less often, and at the first symptoms or after cooling, it is necessary to take preventive measures. Such preventive measures can be specific and non-specific. Specific prevention of colds is carried out before the expected epidemic of a particular virus. For example, at the end of September, you can carry out specific prevention of influenza by vaccinating your child. This is a completely safe method and very effective, especially for children who often get sick. But if there has already been an episode of contact with a patient with a viral infection or after cooling the body there is a high risk of illness, then you need to resort to non-specific methods.

What should you do at the first signs of a cold in a child? First of all, you need to provide comfortable conditions for the child and "less" comfortable for the virus. The first symptoms of a cold can be completely non-specific symptoms - headache, fatigue, drowsiness. There may be an increase in body temperature, usually to subfebrile numbers. This is the period when the virus is just beginning to actively multiply in the child's body. And in order to reduce the amount of virus in the air, you need to ventilate the room, provide access to the sun. The child should drink a lot of fluids in the form of warm tea with lemon - this increases sweating and toxins and virus particles are released with sweat. You can't force the child to eat, since the additional load on the stomach only worsens the condition. The diet should include vegetables and vitamins and with a minimum amount of fat. All these measures are very important at the first signs of a cold, since they reduce the amount of virus in the body and activate its own defenses.

It is very important to start treatment when the first symptoms appear, since antiviral drugs are effective precisely at the initial stages of the disease. Among the medications that are recommended for the first symptoms of a viral infection, there are a very large number of drugs. Complex homeopathic drugs are used - Anaferon, Arbidol, Oscillococcinum, Ergoferon, Influcid, Proteflazid, as well as analogues of its own interferon - Laferobion, Nazoferon, Cycloferon, Viferon.

Among antiviral drugs, a special place is occupied by drugs with direct antiviral activity - these are Groprinosin, Novirin, Normomed. Which drug to choose at the first symptoms of a cold is decided by the doctor himself together with the mother. When choosing a drug, previous experience in treating a viral infection in a particular child is important, since sensitivity to different drugs varies in different children.

Traditional methods of treatment also play an important role in the treatment of acute viral infections in children. Especially with frequent colds in a child, the use of traditional remedies periodically or during the infection season is very effective in preventing the development of infection. For this purpose, it is very useful to use herbal teas or products with an immunomodulatory effect. At the first symptoms of a cold, you can offer your child linden and raspberry bark tea with honey and lemon. This is not only a healthy tea, but also delicious. Ginger root also has high antiviral activity and immunomodulatory properties. Therefore, you can add a little of this root to your child's tea and it tastes great with lemon. You can drink this tea constantly throughout the fall and winter. Therefore, answering the question of what to do with frequent colds in a child, the answer is definitely in preventive measures. There are also medications that have an immunomodulatory effect and are prescribed according to a scheme - their intake reduces the frequency of episodes of the disease and their duration.

Medicinal interventions for colds in children

Parents are often interested in whether it is possible to conduct certain tests when a child is sick. Often, this concerns vaccinations or tests that a child should undergo regularly. Any infection, even a cold, is an additional burden on the child's immunity. This means that any reaction to external intervention will not proceed as in a healthy body. Any vaccination has the main goal of strengthening the body's immune response to a certain virus or bacteria by introducing a similar particle in the form of a vaccine. If a child is sick, any vaccination is perceived by the body as a very strong antigen and the disease itself can develop. Therefore, any vaccinations should not be given to a child with a cold.

Can Mantoux be done for a child with a cold? Mantoux is a test, the essence of which also consists of introducing a small amount of bacterial antigen, and therefore the effect of this test will be false positive. Therefore, Mantoux is also not given to a child with a cold.

Is it possible to do an ECG if a child has a cold? Oddly enough, this is a common question from parents. This is a non-invasive intervention, so the cold itself does not affect the cardiography or the result. Therefore, if this is a routine examination, then such methods can be carried out on a child. But it should be taken into account that if it is a strong flu, then the child's condition may be serious and you should not insist on any examinations.

As for other interventions, the question is more complicated. Is it possible to perform surgery when a child has a cold? It often happens that there is some planned surgery, for example, for an umbilical hernia, and the day before the child fell ill. Of course, the doctor himself evaluates the condition and decides this issue, but often the anesthesiologist does not dare to perform the surgery, since anesthesia is more difficult to administer when the child is sick. And as for the postoperative period, when the child is healthy, everything goes better. Therefore, it is not recommended to perform surgery on a child with a cold.

Is it possible to do a massage when a child has a cold? If the cold is accompanied by a wet cough or poor expectoration, then massage is an excellent way to help in the treatment. Drainage massage promotes expectoration and better expectoration. Therefore, the mother is shown the basic techniques so that she can repeat them to simplify the course of the disease. But if there is no cough, and the child just has a fever and a runny nose, then massage will not help here, but on the contrary, it will "drive" the infection further. Therefore, massage can be used for colds, but only under certain conditions.

Complications

Colds often cause complications, and the younger the child, the more often this happens. The most common complications arise when colds are not treated in a timely manner. Then the infectious process descends on the bronchi and lungs, bacterial flora joins in and bronchitis or pneumonia develops. Otitis is a common complication of colds in young children. This is due to the fact that at a young age, the auditory tube, which connects the ear and nasopharynx, is wide and short. Therefore, even a simple runny nose can cause complications and the inflammatory process quickly spreads to the ear. What to do if a child has difficulty hearing after a cold? This is most likely otitis, so you need to urgently contact an ENT specialist. At home, a mother can check if the child has problems with the ear. You just need to press on the ear, if something is wrong, the child will react, and then you definitely need to contact a doctor.

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Preventive measures

Prevention of colds plays an important role, as it is often an obstacle to a child's attendance at kindergarten or school. What should be done to avoid infecting a child with a cold? First of all, it is necessary to avoid contact with already sick children, if this is of course possible. It is possible to give preventive medications or folk remedies during the season of the disease. It is necessary to improve the child's health and increase his immunity in the summer, when there is a lot of sun and vitamins. It is believed that a trip to the sea is not only a pleasant walk for a child, but sea water is very useful for health. It is necessary to do morning exercises, which also affects the immune status of the child. An active life, swimming, playing sports - all this stimulates both the nervous and immune systems of the child.

What to do if a child has a cold? It is very important to start treatment when the first symptoms appear, and the mother decides which methods to choose. But do not think that the child should not get sick at all: three times a year is a normal frequency of episodes of illness for a child, because this is how his immunity is formed. But if there are often sick children in the family, then specific and non-specific preventive measures come to the fore.