Pneumonia is one of the most common respiratory diseases in children. It occurs during the cold winter and spring months and during sudden changes in temperature, which is another test for young and weak children.
Can pneumonia be cured without a cure?
No! Pneumonia is most often caused by bacterial or viral infections and requires prompt anti-infection treatment. If not treated in time, it may cause respiratory failure and heart failure, which may endanger your child’s life.
What are the conditions that require early medical attention?
Pneumonia is mainly characterized by fever, cough, shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing. When a child is found to be breathing fast, blue around the mouth and lips, pale or blue, it means that the child is deprived of oxygen, which is a sign of aggravation and must be treated at the hospital early.
Some infants only have poor mental appetite, foaming at the mouth, etc., which is easily ignored by parents, and often when parents realize that their children are sick and seek medical attention, the condition is already relatively serious. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to infants with poor appetite and white foam in the mouth, especially those younger than 3 months.
Children who are weak or have congenital diseases are prone to aggravation of respiratory infections and should seek medical attention as soon as possible.
How parents can care for their children with pneumonia
(1) Rest and environment
The room should not be overcrowded to ensure that the child gets enough rest. The room should be ventilated frequently, twice a day for 30 minutes each time, but the wind through the room should be avoided.
(2) Diet
Breastfeeding and mixed feeding children continue to maintain the original feeding method, pay attention to a small number of meals. For older children with poor appetite and reluctance to eat, choose light and easily digestible food, such as thin rice, noodles and soup, and ensure a certain amount of high quality protein, such as milk and eggs.
(3) Skin and oral care
Children who sweat a lot can use sweat towels, clothes should be changed in time when wet, and use towels to dry the sweat. Drink more water and keep the mouth clean.
(4) Cough and sputum care
For infants and children who cannot cough up sputum on their own, parents should always pick up the child and pat the back regularly. The method of patting the back: the hand is slightly bowed in the form of a hollow palm, and the child’s back is patted rhythmically from the bottom to the top and from the outside to the inside with slight force on both sides of the scapular area to achieve the purpose of vibration and make the sputum cough out.
Older children with a lot of sputum should be encouraged to cough out the sputum. Method of coughing up sputum: Encourage the child to take a deep breath and then cough hard to cough up the sputum.
If there is vomiting, pay attention to the side-lying or forward-leaning position with the upper body tilted forward 15-30 degrees to avoid asphyxiation caused by vomit aspiration into the trachea.
How to prevent pneumonia in weak children?
(1) Preventing pneumonia in children with weak constitutions is a gradual process, especially for children who are too delicate to care for.
(2) Strengthen your child’s nutrition, pay attention to dietary diversity, but also according to their own child’s diet to adjust the diet, not myopic too full to aggravate the gastrointestinal burden.
(3) Strengthen physical fitness, more sunshine, more outdoor sports, enhance the body’s ability to withstand cold. This process should not be rushed, avoid cold and windy weather, and pay particular attention to timely care when a lot of sweating.
(4) These children have weak respiratory resistance, avoid passive smoking; timely increase and decrease clothing when the seasons change; in the high season of pneumonia go to crowded public places (such as supermarkets, theaters, indoor playgrounds, etc.) as little as possible; family with respiratory infections pay attention to isolation.
(5) timely vaccination; suffering from malnutrition, rickets, anemia and congenital heart disease baby should be treated in a timely manner to enhance resistance, to help reduce the occurrence of respiratory infections.