How to treat a baby’s cold?

👶 What are the common cold in Baby?

The common cold is not an illness, it is only a sign that your little one has just met a new aggressor (virus) that he is fighting. This is what allows him little by little to build his own defenses. Some children thus need to undergo a hundred nasopharyngitis to be immunized against the usual germs. Until their immune system matures, around the age of 7 or 8.

What are the causes of the common cold?

In toddlers, teething more often causes colds than viruses. The nose is runny, the child drools, the buttocks are irritated: an unfortunately banal picture during the first year of a baby.

If your child has more than one cold per month throughout the year, the doctor will look for a medical cause: a respiratory allergy or gastroesophageal reflux disease (acid reflux of the stomach), in particular. In the first case, sensitization tests to dust mites or pollens can be carried out by an allergist from the age of 2 years. In the second case, an esophageal fibroscopy or a measurement of gastric acidity (pH-metry) will confirm the diagnosis and prescribe drug treatment.

Colds in babies 👶: what to do?

As a first step, discover your child as much as possible to lower his temperature, leave him for example in a bodysuit or even a diaper, lie him down in peace, in a room heated to 20 ° C maximum, and give him often drink water or milk, or breastfeed to keep her from becoming dehydrated.

However, see a doctor in the following cases: if your baby under 3 months old has a fever, if your child is behaving unusually (whiny or downcast) or other associated symptoms (vomiting, diarrhea, rash). Because the common cold can become superinfect and cause otitis, bronchitis or bronchiolitis.

Baby has a cold: when to see the doctor?

If your child has a low fever, you can wait 2-3 days before seeing the doctor as long as there are no other worrying signs. But do not wait in case of high fever, over 39 ° C

What is the treatment for colds in infants?

Treatment is mostly symptomatic: hydrate your child first to prevent dehydration from diarrhea or fever.

The best way to help a toddler breathe is with a nose wash.

Keep the baby’s head sideways, in profile, and place the nozzle of the sprayer or pipette perpendicular to the face, in the upper nostril. If his nose is not blocked, do not make a gesture of daily hygiene, otherwise these saline solutions may irritate the mucous membranes and send the mucus into the back of the throat, thus spreading the infection up to in the bronchi. As long as he doesn’t know how to blow his nose on his own, you can also suck up phlegm with a baby nose device. But you won’t suck up the mucus deeply. 

When the child is older, teach him to blow his nose by blowing one nostril after the other.

Place tissues at his disposal that he will throw away after each use, and also explain to him that he must always wash his hands. As long as he doesn’t know how to blow his nose on his own, you can suck up the phlegm with a baby nose device.

Can we cure a baby’s cold with homeopathy?

Is homeopathy recommended to treat a baby’s cold? It seems that the granules make the body more resistant, limit the frequency of rhinos, and thereby reduce the risk of superinfection.

In addition to the usual precautions (cleaning the nose, blowing your nose, monitoring fever, etc.), you can follow the advice of Dr Pierre Popowski, homeopathic pediatrician.

Prevent colds in babies with homeopathy

Take Sulfur Iodatum 15 CH in two doses, seven days apart.

Treating Baby’s Colds with Homeopathy: 

• If the discharge is clear and irritates the upper lip: Allium Cepa 7 CH. 
• If the flow turns yellow / green: Hydrastis canadensis 7 CH.
• If, on the contrary, the nose is blocked at night, and the discharge is clear during the day: Nux Vomica 7 CH four times a day.

Homeopathy, how does it work?

Homeopathy acts on the energy disorder at the origin of the disease, and according to the principle of similarity: a sick person is administered very small doses of a substance which in high doses causes the same symptoms in a healthy person . 

The small homeopathic granules are prepared from active ingredients of vegetable, mineral (sea salt…) or animal origin, such as bees or highly diluted snake venom.

Can Food Prevent Colds?

An iron deficiency makes it more fragile and therefore more prone to infections, especially ENT. They are more common in vegetarian children and breastfed babies because breast milk is low in iron. A simple blood test to measure ferritin can confirm the diagnosis. In this case, infant milk, systematically fortified with iron, or 30 g of red meat two to three times a week is often sufficient as a treatment. Otherwise, the doctor may prescribe iron supplementation in the form of syrup.

Colds in babies: should they have their tonsils and adenoids removed?

Removal of the tonsils (tonsillectomy) can be useful and effective in children who have more than 6 tonsillitis per year, or when these repeated conditions cause breathing pauses or slowed growth. As for the removal of adenoids (adenoidectomy), it is recommended to treat children who have a permanently blocked nose, enormous adenoids or who have recurrent ear infections. To see with your pediatrician because it is no longer recommended systematically.