Coughing is a protective respiratory reflex to remove secretions or foreign bodies from the respiratory tract. Children can effectively remove secretions from the respiratory tract or foreign bodies entering the airway through the cough reflex. Therefore, do not rush to use cough medicine for pediatric cough. Severe coughing can spread tracheal lesions to the adjacent small bronchi and aggravate the condition. In addition, a persistent and violent cough can interfere with rest and also consume energy, and can cause damage to the elastic tissue of the alveolar wall and induce emphysema. The cough needs to be stopped in time, so when a child has a severe cough, he or she needs to go to the hospital in time.
Cough is the result of a combination of many factors
The formation and recurrent onset of cough is often the result of a combination of many complex factors. For the cause of a pediatric cough, you cannot rely on the doctor’s diagnosis alone; sometimes careful parental observation is also very important. For some children with frequent coughs, parents need to be aware of the following common causes.
1. Inhalants: Inhalants are divided into two types: specific and non-specific. The former are such as dust mites, pollen, fungi, animal hair dander, etc.; non-specific inhalants such as sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide, chlorine ammonia, formaldehyde, etc.
2. Infection: The formation and onset of cough is associated with recurrent respiratory infections. In patients with cough, infections with bacteria, viruses, mycoplasma, etc. can be present. In viral infections, the respiratory epithelium can be directly damaged, resulting in increased respiratory reactivity. In the lactation period, there is also a high incidence of respiratory viruses (especially respiratory syncytial virus) infections with cough symptoms. Coughs caused by parasites such as roundworms and hookworms can still be seen in rural areas.
3. Food: Cough attacks due to diet are often seen in cough patients, especially in infants and young children who are prone to food allergies, but this gradually decreases with age. The most common foods that cause allergies are fish, shrimp and crabs, eggs, milk, etc.
4. Climate change: Cough can be triggered when the temperature, air pressure and/or ions in the air change, so there is more incidence in the cold season or in autumn and winter when the climate changes.
5. Mental factors: Emotional excitement, nervousness, and resentment in children can prompt coughing episodes, which are generally thought to be caused by reflexes through the cerebral cortex and vagus nerve or hyperventilation.
6. Exercise: About 70-80% of coughing patients induce coughing after strenuous exercise, which is called exercise-induced cough, or exercise cough. Clinical manifestations include cough, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and wheezing, and croup can be heard on auscultation. In some patients, although there is no typical asthma manifestation after exercise, bronchospasm can be detected by pulmonary function measurements before and after exercise.
According to the duration of cough, it can be divided into acute cough, subacute and chronic cough
1. Acute cough: It is a cough that occurs within 3 weeks and is the most common symptom in pediatric outpatient clinics. Etiologies include post-infectious cough caused by viruses, mycoplasma or bacteria, acute bronchitis, pneumonia, respiratory tract infection, tuberculosis, and foreign bodies in the trachea.
2. Subacute cough: A cough lasting longer than 3 weeks and within 8 weeks is called a subacute cough and has more complex causes.
3. Chronic cough: lasting more than 8 weeks, it can last for years or even last for decades. The causes of chronic cough are more complex and include cough variant asthma (allergic bronchitis), upper respiratory cough syndrome (allergic rhinobronchitis), gastroesophageal reflux, eosinophilic bronchitis, and chronic bronchitis. Among them, cough variant asthma and upper respiratory cough syndrome are the most common.
Chinese medicine classifies coughs into two main categories: external coughs and internal coughs.
Many parents ask whether a child’s cough is a cold cough or a hot cough. Cold and hot are the terms used in TCM, so you can get a brief idea. Generally speaking, a short cough with fever belongs to an external cough. A longer cough with more sputum, or a longer dry cough, is an internal cough. External coughs are divided into wind-cold coughs and wind-heat coughs. Internal coughs are divided into phlegm-damp cough, phlegm-heat cough, and yin-deficiency cough. Let’s learn together the following.
1. Wind-cold cough: It is mostly seen in winter and spring. Performance: sputum is thin and white, foamy, with a phlegm sound in the throat, easy to cough up, and headache, nasal congestion, clear runny nose, or accompanied by fear of cold, aversion to cold, no sweating, light red tongue, thin white coating, etc.
2. Wind-heat cough: It is more common in summer and autumn. Expression: yellowish phlegm, small amount, dry cough without phlegm or unpleasant cough, dry and painful throat, hoarse voice, itchy throat, thirst, often accompanied by fever, headache, dizziness, red tongue, thin yellow coating, floating or floating pulse.
3. Phlegm-damp cough: Children have repeated episodes of coughing, with heavy coughing sound, chest tightness and suffocation, especially in the morning, with more sputum, sticky or thick lumps of sputum, white or grayish in color. It is often accompanied by stuffy stomach, little food, abdominal distension, sometimes loose stools, white and greasy tongue coating, and moist and smooth pulse.
4. Phlegm-heat cough: Children have a cough with coarse breath, or phlegm in the throat, thick or thick yellow phlegm, unpleasant coughing and vomiting, or a hot fishy smell, or vomiting of blood phlegm, chest fullness, coughing with pain, red face, or body heat, dry and sticky mouth, desire to drink, red tongue, thin yellowish greasy tongue coating, and slippery pulse.
5. Yin deficiency cough: dry cough, short cough, or blood in the sputum, low fever, red cheek after afternoon, night sweating, dry mouth, red tongue, little moss, and fine pulse.