Natural Preparation for the Cough and Cold Season
It is never convenient for your child or you to become ill. While I missed school (and work!) days are unavoidable, there are some natural actions you can take to reduce them and better prepare your family for the cold season. As a pediatrician and a parent, I'm excited to discuss ideas for boosting your immune system so that no one gets sick in the first place. I've also included non-medication options for treating your child's cough and cold symptoms.
Ways to Avoid Illness During the Cold Season
The most effective preventative technique is simply regular exercise, enough sleep, and a healthy diet. To help avoid sickness, encourage your family to eat a nutritious diet rich in vitamins and minerals, including immune-boosting foods like fish, citrus fruits, and green vegetables. Also, have tissues, vitamin C, throat lozenges, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant spray on hand. To make sickness prevention even easier, keep them all in one spot.
Other approaches include:
Hand washing is the most effective strategy to keep healthy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Teach your children to often wash their hands to help destroy any viruses or germs they may have picked up. Scrub their hands for 20 seconds with ordinary soap and warm water, including the backs of their hands, between their fingers, and beneath their nails. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based gel. Remind your kid to sneeze and cough into their elbow's crux and to keep their hands away from their eyes, nose, and mouth.
Disinfect to protect: In just 30 minutes, children may touch and retouch more than 300 surfaces. Spraying often touched surfaces and items with a disinfectant after cleaning can help protect family members from picking up and spreading germs with their hands. Regular disinfection will aid in the elimination of cold and flu-causing viruses and germs before anyone in your household becomes ill.
Begin daily superfruit protection for the entire household. Black elderberries are one of nature's finest sources of anthocyanin pigments, which have an amazing potential to activate the body's immune system. Sambucol, the original black elderberry supplement used throughout the cough/cold season for natural immune support, is the best-researched version and is available as great-tasting pectin-based Gummies.
If your child becomes ill, use natural remedies.
If your child's cold symptoms aren't interfering with his sleep or everyday activities, you probably don't need to give him medicine. Cold remedies that are "non-medical" in nature, such as nasal saline spray, hot steam, and simply drinking enough fluids, are frequently the most effective.
You might try the following instead:
Cough and congestion relief with steam cleaning
Give your child steam, steam, and more steam for coughs, runny noses, and congestion. Turn the bathroom into a steam chamber for newborns and small children by closing the door and turning the shower on full hot. Spend 10 or 15 minutes there. Use a face steamer or a pot of hot water on older youngsters (with caution!). The steam will assist release your child's nasal and chest congestion, allowing him or her to cough or blow it out. Do this steam cleaning every morning and before night, and if feasible, during the day.
If you are congested, you should sleep upright.
Encourage your youngster to sleep in a slightly upright position if at all feasible. This makes it simpler to breathe while sleeping.
Clear their nostrils for runny noses.
It is critical for older children to blow their nose multiple times during a steam cleaning, as well as regularly during the day. Getting rid of all the trash will help keep this from becoming a bacterial infection. A nasal decongestant spray can be used instead of steaming to loosen up nasal congestion before blowing it out. If a newborn is too young to blow their nose, a blue rubber bulb syringe can be used to suction them out.
Consume twice as much drink as normal.
This will assist thin secretions and keep you hydrated.
If you decide to take medicine to treat coughs and colds, only do so if the symptoms are interfering with your child's everyday life or keeping them or you up at night. It is OK to let your youngster to cough multiple times every hour during the day. It is preferable for her to cough out the mucus so that it does not accumulate in her lungs. It is also preferable to accept a runny nose or some nasal congestion during the day if your child is not bothered by it.
Always call your doctor if you suspect your child is particularly unwell, or if her symptoms worsen or do not improve within four days. A prolonged high temperature, dehydration, severe cough with chest discomfort and shortness of breath, or a strong headache with a stiff, painful back of the neck and continuous vomiting may indicate a more serious problem.
