What Is Pneumonia

What Is Pneumonia

Typically, children may suffer from either bronchopneumonia, with its characteristic symptoms of a cough, cold , high temperature and fever, or pneumonia, with similar symptoms but some pain in the lungs.

Pneumonia suggests to parents a much more serious disease at all, but a term of which have the common factor of inflammation in the lungs. The severity of the condition varies depending on the age of the child, and the cause and extent of the inflammation. It can range from a harmless chance finding on an X-ray to a complication in children severely ill with almost any dangerous disease.

Pneumonia Causes

Pneumonia has many causes. Most commonly it is the result of a bacterial infection, but it may also be caused by a virus or a tiny organism belonging to the Mycoplasma family, or certain fungi (moulds). Even the inhalation of foreign materials, such as vomit, paraffin, furniture polish, white spirit- and in the case of a young child, a peanut - can inflame the lungs. Infection higher up the respiratory tree (breathing system), such as colds, croup, bronchitis and hooping cough, can all, with varying degrees or rarity, develop into pneumonia. Pneumonia, too, can be a complication of more general infection such as measles and chickenpox. The site infection is determined by the type of  pneumonia. For example, in  bronchopneumonia areas of infection will be scattered throughout the lungs, or lungs; whereas lobar pneumonia, as the name suggest, affect just the three lobes into which the lungs is divided. In all types of pneumonia there is damage to the air sacs in the lungs. Under normal condition these sacs are like tiny balloons full of air, In pneumonia, however, the sacs are full of  bacterial or viruses, body defense cells, fluid, dead and dying tissue and hair like strands of protein called fibrin. This makes the air sacs useless for their job of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide between the air breathed in and the bloodstream.

*** Pneumonia Symptoms And Complication
*** Pneumonia Treatment And recovery

Pneumonia Symptoms And Complication

Pneumonia Symptoms

How ill the patient with pneumonia is depends largely on how much of the lungs is affected. In some case of pneumonia, the infection is so slight that there may be no symptoms at all. In fact, if chest X-ray were done on every child with a cough or cold, a surprising high number would show a minor degree of pneumonia. School age children may suffer typical lobar pneumonia. A day or two of a cold leads on to increase cough - initially dry but later producing phlegm which is frequently green or blood-stained. The during the day so that a temperature chart can look like an outline of a mountain range. At its height the child may shake all over (rigor).

The child's face become flushed, and his breathing rapid and shallow. With each breath there is pain over the side of the affected lungs, making him groan or cry out. Abdominal pain may be present rather than chest pain so that occasionally lobar pneumonia is initially mistaken for appendicitis. The neck may be stiff causing confusion with meningitis. Without treatment, the illness continues for several days antibiotics bring about recovery, although the child cough up phlegm for several days after feels better. Younger children and babies rarely have such a clear-cut illness, suffering instead from bronchopneumonia. The infant may appear to have a cough or a cold, or may just have a high temperature and fever, or have rapid, shallow breathing. In some cases there may be combination of all these symptoms, pneumonia can sometimes be difficult to diagnose without a chest X-ray. 

Pneumonia Complication

Virtually all children with pneumonia recover completely. Complication are rare, but when they do occur they can be very serious: the bags (pleura); which surround the lungs may begin to fill the space between the lungs and pleura  (empyema);  and infection in certain bacterial pneumonia may spread into the blood stream (septicaemia). There is a sight danger with pneumonia that sputum or phlegm may block an air tube causing part of the lung to collapse since no air can reach it. In small babies, pneumonia may be very difficult to diagnose and signs of the disease are sometimes found in babies who unexpectedly (cot-death) with no previous evidence of any lung problem having been visible.

Pneumonia Treatment

Pneumonia Treatment

The treatment of  pneumonia varies according to the case. In mild case, generally caused by a virus, no treatment at all may be necessary. However, where the child's breathing is laboured and if his tongue looks bluer than normal, then oxygen will be needed. If  part of the lungs has collapsed or if it sounds as thought the child has a great ideal of phlegm in his lungs, physiotherapy may be needed. 

Lobar pneumonia can be cured within two days with penicillin given by injection. The less clear-cut pneumonia's of infants and babies may or may not respond to against bacteria but not viruses.

Many cases of pneumonia can be treated at home, especially it breathing is not inadequate. Whether or not a child is sent to hospital, however, depends on his age, the severity of the illness, the anxiety of the doctor, the reaction of the parents and the adequacy of their home for housing a sick child-particularly in terms of warmth, damp and overcrowding.

Pneumonia Recovery

Complete recovery is the rule. And if the course of the illness is uncomplicated there is usually no need for convalescence. Most children return to school in a fortnight. With the exception of the newborn, for whom pneumonia in the first week or two of life is a dangerous even requiring intensive care and possibly mechanical ventilation, an attack of pneumonia neither weakens the child of pneumonia neither weakens the child, nor, as a general rule, the lungs.

What is colic ?

Already a mother of twins, Delphine imagined that the arrival of her third child would happen in serenity. But Jean has colic just changed the game !

Bebevallee: At what age your son he started to suffer from colic ?


Delphine: About three or four weeks. He began to cry during the day.He was squirming all over the place, and that's a sign that I recognized that he had colic. It really seemed to suffer from stomach.

What did you do for relief ?

Actually, I tried everything! I started by giving an herbal remedy sold in pharmacies. I also administered because it Gaviscon regurgitation. I made him take Doliprane to relieve pain. I rub her belly. I even went to an osteopath who has done a few sessions of manipulation.

What were the most effective remedies ?

It's hard to say because I just did everything together, I just could not let him suffer like this because it was obvious he was suffering. What I noticed is that he calmed down when I took against me, her belly against my skin. So, I wore constantly baby carrier, which allowed me to have a free hand to look after my twins were just two years. It was not very pleasant for adults, not very convenient for me, but at least it allowed John to calm down! Against me, he recovered his composure .... I had also known as "graft" !


When colic were they arrested ?


When John was 3 months and a half or so. It was quite miraculous in the space of a week or two, colic is gone and he stopped to suffer.Jean became a baby calm and quiet, it has remained ever since! He's always a calm and serene, what would never have suspected, seeing between 1 and 3 months !

How have you lived through that period of colic ?

I was not worried about his health, which was already an important point. However, these two / three months have been very physically demanding. I was really exhausted. I had imagined that the arrival of the third would be so easy after twins, I really fell in height! I was distraught to see my son suffer, when I had not encountered such difficulties with my first two.

What would you say to mothers whose babies suffer from colic ?

Simply, is that this is a purely mechanical and that one should draw any conclusions about the character of the child and its future development! The repeated cry of my son during those two months did not prevent him from becoming a father when his intestines still gave him the break! I also remember that some people around me were shocked that I keep Jean pressed against me for days. "It is capricious," I was told. What I noticed is that it has become very independent when he was old enough to explore the world, and that these two months of my proximity to him in any way have given the wrong habits! Colic is a bad time to pass, that does not last. You just bite the bullet and wait it out without panic.