Parents' mistakes make children's coughs more serious

Coughing is a reflex to expel fluids, phlegm secreted by the bronchi or lungs or foreign objects from the outside such as food, dust... out of the respiratory tract. Depending on the cause, the nature of the cough and the pathological characteristics will be different.

There are many causes of cough such as: Infection (bacteria, virus), allergic rhinitis, cough due to exposure to irritants such as: Smoke, dust, cold air. However, in children, cough is often associated with upper respiratory diseases, but sometimes cough is a more serious process.

Common types of coughs can be dry coughs, phlegmy coughs or allergic coughs. Dry coughs are dry coughs, with almost no phlegm or mucus, and the more the child coughs, the more the throat feels sore. When coughing due to allergies, children often cough in fits, especially before going to bed, after waking up or when changing positions.

Children with coughs due to weather irritation will often have a lot of phlegm, but it is clear phlegm, without fever.

Coughing up phlegm is characterized by chest heaviness, often coughing up thin or thick phlegm. In fact, many parents are very worried when seeing their children cough because they fear it will lead to pneumonia, so they rush to buy cough medicine or apply whatever is recommended.

Coughing is a common problem in children, especially when the weather changes. Illustration photo.

Below are common mistakes that make children's coughs worse, parents should take note:

- Children cough because of cold and over-warming

Many parents believe that coughs are caused by colds, so when they see their children coughing, they avoid bathing them, dress them in too many clothes, and do not let them go outside. However, keeping them too warm can make the cough worse. Parents should not let their children wear 3-4 layers of clothing and keep them in a closed room. If their children have a cough with a fever, parents should dress them in cool clothes so that the heat can radiate to the surrounding environment and open windows to allow air exchange. Many children cough for 1-2 days before getting a fever, but parents do not detect any symptoms of fever or signs of difficulty breathing if they keep their children too warm. When children cough, parents only need to avoid letting their children come into direct contact with the wind. They can still bathe their children, but they need to bathe them with warm water and quickly to avoid the children getting cold.

- Eat and drink sparingly

When children cough a lot, parents are afraid that the condition will get worse, so they should abstain from foods such as shrimp, crab, prawns, chicken, vegetables... but in fact, nutrition experts say that there is no scientific evidence to prove that these foods make children cough worse. If children cough often do not eat, it is even more wrong to abstain from nutritious foods during this time. When the diet is monotonous, children lose their appetite, the body lacks nutrients, making them lose resistance and become sicker. Therefore, children who cough do not need to abstain from foods, you can feed them shrimp but peel them and only need to abstain from foods that cause allergies. That means children who cough due to asthma or children with allergies need to avoid foods that are easily allergic such as eggs, shrimp, crab, fish, cow's milk... otherwise, there is no need to abstain too much.

- Give your child cough medicine immediately.

When children cough, parents worry, want their children to recover quickly, rush to the pharmacy to buy cough medicine with the hope of getting well quickly. If using strong cough medicine and high doses, incompatible with the child's body, it can lead to symptoms of drug shock, dangerous side effects after use.

Some people even think that it is safe to give children cough syrup, especially herbal cough syrup.

However, parents need to understand that coughing is a natural reflex of the body to eliminate phlegm, irritants or viruses from the airways. In other words, the cough reflex in most cases is protective. Therefore, cough medicine should only be used in cases where the child has a dry cough, excessive cough, causing fatigue, vomiting, insomnia, etc.

Even though popular herbal cough syrups are relatively safe and can be used for infants and young children. However, parents should also note that if the cough syrup contains menthol (or peppermint oil), it should not be used for children under 2 years old, because menthol can inhibit the child's breathing. In addition, the dosage for children depends on each age group... so it is best not to rush to buy cough medicine for children to drink.

- Relieve children's cough without medication

In contrast to parents being too concerned about using drugs, many parents are worried about the side effects of drugs that are harmful to children. So after 2-3 days of taking the medicine as prescribed by the doctor, the symptoms subside, parents stop giving their children the medicine. This makes the disease easy to relapse because stopping the medicine in the middle makes it difficult to completely cure the disease. Especially prescriptions containing antibiotics, if not treated properly, can easily cause drug resistance. In subsequent illnesses, this type of antibiotic is often no longer effective due to drug-resistant bacteria.

Coughing in children is a common problem. If parents are worried, take the child to a medical facility for examination and specific advice. Illustrative photo.

- For childrentake antibiotics immediately

When children cough, parents think it is probably due to sore throat, infection and fear of pneumonia, so they buy antibiotics to treat it immediately. Meanwhile, coughs in children are mainly caused by viruses. While the use of antibiotics should be considered by doctors. Because antibiotics only kill or inhibit bacteria, but are ineffective against viral diseases.

The overuse of antibiotics to treat respiratory diseases also leads to drug resistance in children. In addition, indiscriminate use of antibiotics also increases the risk of allergies and chronic diseases such as asthma, obesity, arthritis, etc.

- Using old prescriptions

With the thought that the previous prescription is very effective and saves time for medical examination, when seeing children coughing, parents take out the old prescription to buy to treat the child's illness. This is a bad habit and in reality, cough symptoms can be a manifestation of many diseases, with different causes and severity levels. In addition, when children grow older, the type of medicine and dosage also change. The old prescription is no longer suitable, even dangerous for children if the wrong disease is treated.

In summary: Coughing in children is a common problem. If parents are worried, take the child to a medical facility for examination and specific advice. Do not self-treat or treat based on advice, as this will make the cough worse.

Parents must remember that cough medicine only temporarily relieves the symptoms of cough in children, but does not treat the cause of the disease. One of the most common causes of cough is cold (or respiratory tract infection - most of which are caused by viruses). In this case, it is not necessary to use cough medicine, just keep the child warm, give more water, rest and adequate nutrition, the child will recover.