What is cough?
Babies cough frequently. Coughing is a protective reflex. It carries inhaled particles (dust, milk or porridge residues, etc.) as well as mucus and secretions that accumulate in the airways to the outside.
However, coughing can also be a symptom of a disease. In most cases, this is an upper respiratory tract infection such as a cold. In rare cases, external pressure on the trachea triggers the cough.
What kind of cough does my baby have?
However, coughing in babies (or other ages) can not only have different causes, but also sound different. For example, your child’s cough may have the following qualities:
- unproductive, dry (without sputum)
- productive, moist (with sputum)
- barking
- rattling (due to secretion in the airways)
- staccato
If the cough is accompanied by shortness of breath, the patient must receive medical treatment immediately!
From the sound of the cough, it is often possible to draw conclusions about the possible cause of the cough. Examples:
- A barking, dry cough often indicates pseudo-croup – especially if it occurs at night and is associated with a whistling or hissing breathing sound (stridor). For young children, this viral disease can be dangerous because swelling of the mucous membrane in the trachea can cause respiratory distress.
- A moist, rattling cough signals a lot of secretion in the airways. Acute bronchitis is often accompanied by such a “productive” cough later in the course of the disease.
How long does the cough last?
In most cases, cough lasts only a few days and then subsides if it is not caused by an infection.
Chronic coughs that last for weeks may be due to asthma, chronic bronchitis, or whooping cough, for example. If there are smokers in the household, chronic cough in the baby may also be due to constant inhalation of tobacco smoke.
Doctors refer to coughs that last up to three weeks as acute. They usually refer to a chronic cough when someone coughs for longer than eight weeks. A cough that lasts between three and eight weeks is called subacute.
What can be done about the cough?
Very often, coughing is a sign that the airways are irritated, for example, by mucus or pathogens. The purpose of coughing is to clear the airways of the “irritants”. You can help your child with the following measures:
- Your baby should drink enough and repeatedly to keep the airways moist.
- Dry heating air further irritates the mucous membranes when coughing. Hanging damp laundry or damp towels in the room moistens the air in the room.
- You should only use cough suppressant preparations (for dry irritating cough) on the instructions of your doctor. Although they suppress the urge to cough, they also prevent the bronchial tubes from being cleared and can sometimes even suppress the urge to breathe.
When to see a doctor.
In certain cases, you should definitely have a cough in the baby clarified by a doctor. This applies, among other things, to:
- Babies under three months old
- severe cough
- sudden onset of a barking cough
- coughing in the context of an influenza infection, if it continues unabated for a week or worsens or becomes painful after several days
- cough that recurs very frequently or lasts for a long time
- Cough with high fever
- cough with shortness of breath
If your baby shows even slight signs of shortness of breath when coughing (gray skin, audible “pulling” when taking a breath, or even blue lips), you must go to the clinic or see the pediatrician immediately!
