Introduction
When the baby is sick for the first time and suffers from a cold, many new parents have a very heavy heart. However, a cold is part of growing and maturing, because every cold strengthens the baby’s immune system. This is because at birth the baby is only equipped with more than half of its later defensive capabilities and must first learn the rest through contact with pathogens such as the cold viruses.
Is a cold dangerous for my baby?
The harmless cold pathogens train the immune system to cope with worse pathogens that the child will encounter in the course of its life. Usually it hits babies between the third and sixth month of life with a so-called infection, often when the breastfeeding period ends. Babies receive important antibodies through their mother’s milk during the breastfeeding period.
Antibodies are our body’s defense mechanism against viruses and bacteria. They are formed specifically for each pathogen, identify it and make it visible to our defence system by marking it. Through breast milk, a baby therefore benefits from the antibodies of its mother, since its own body is far from having encountered all pathogens and thus has not been able to form protective antibodies. At the latest when the baby begins to explore its environment and put various things in its mouth, it also encounters many pathogens. For newborns, up to 10 infections per year are considered perfectly okay, whereas for adults this is an enormous number.
When should you take your baby to the doctor?
Mothers should rely on their gut feeling or intuition in this regard. Hardly any paediatrician will resent a mother if she is worried about her child and therefore wants a clarification. A visit to the doctor is absolutely necessary if there is a noticeable change in the child’s nature.
A drastic change in eating or drinking behaviour. A reduced excretion of urine or stool can also be a good reason to consult a pediatrician. If the child suffers from a fever that cannot be controlled with common medicines such as Nurofen, a visit to the doctor is also recommended.
In addition, the doctor should be consulted if the same complaints or symptoms occur repeatedly. All in all, however, it is very difficult to diagnose babies or small children, as they cannot give any information about the extent of the complaints and the type of symptoms. However, many clues that are valid for adults or older children in order to exclude or detect dangerous diseases cannot be applied to infants and toddlers because they would give false positive or false negative results.