Cough-Causes

What Is Cough ?

Cough are the very common problem in childhood and are usually a symptom of infections such as a cold, measles or whooping cough. The cough itself is a reflex action, designed to prevent anything other than air from entering the lungs. A cough clears the upper part of the breathing tube of phlegm, mucus or any inhaled foreign body. It is worth remembering that, if a child suddenly starts to cough with no other obvious signs of infection, a breathed-in foreign body, such a piece of food, may be the cause. But normally, cough clear up on their own and should not be dosed with strong medicines, unless prescribed by a doctor.

Causes

Most childhood cough starts as part of an obvious respiratory infection the commonest being a cold. A cold can be caught at any age from birth onwards and coughing is nearly always one of the symptoms. The infection of the cold can spread through the tubes which make up the lower respiratory tract. In the larynx, or voice-box, this can cause laryngitis. Infection of the trachea, or windpipe, will cause tracheitis, and infection in the lungs will cause bronchitis or pneumonia. Small children who are prone to bronchitis whenever they get a cold, may also develop wheezing. This can be diagnosed as wheezy bronchitis or, sometimes, as asthma. A cough may last for several weeks after a cold. In this case usually a noisy bark without any rattling noise and no sputum will be present. It will be worse at night when the child is lying down. This happen because, after a cold, the nose and sometimes which, during the day, can be cleared by blowing the nose, sniffing or swallowing (where the stomach can neutralized it harmlessly). At night time, however the discharge trickles down the back of the throat, irritates the entrance to the lungs, and sets off a reflex cough. The reflex prevents the discharge from entering the lungs and so prevents more serious problem arising. Sometimes, other factors, such as enlarged adenoids, a chronic infection of the sinuses or an allergy, can cause a similarly persistent discharge down the throat and so result in a long-lasting cough which is worse at night than in the day. Another cause is whooping cough which has once again become widespread as fewer children are being immunized against it. When it starts, the infection is often very like an ordinary cold but, gradually, the cough gets worse especially at night. Bouts of coughing, during which the child’s face goes red, followed by being sick or a characteristic whooping, make the diagnosis more obvious. Measles is another common cause of coughing. When a child first gets measles, he will suffer from a runny nose and a cough, and the eyes become pink. Small white spots inside the mouth appear followed by a rash on the body. A cough which starts suddenly, without any other signs of infection may be caused by a foreign body which has been breathed in and become lodged in one of the tubes leading to the lungs. Young children often put small toys in their mouths and can quite easily swallow sometimes or breathe it in through the nostrils. A child of any age can breathe in a small piece of food or a titbit such as a peanut. If such an accident happens, it is important to see a doctor any foreign body that remains in the lungs can cause serious infection. Another cough that has no signs of infection is the habit tic. A child who, for example, may have some emotional problem can develop a persistent, nervous cough. Whether or not the child has a habit tic will become apparent if the child stops coughing whenever happily occupied or asleep.READ MORE

Cough-Symptoms,Complication & Treatment

Symptoms

Noisy, dry, barking cough are common and not usually serious. They often stat during a cold and are more persistent at night when children lie down. Sometimes, often start during a cold and are at night, a spell of dry coughing may be the  start of an attack of asthma. Later, the child may get wheezy, although in many children coughing rather than wheezing is the symptom of asthma. A less noisy, rattling cough which leads to sputum being coughed up or swallowed, occur with bronchitis or pneumonia if part of the lung has collapsed. Such a cough also occurs when a foreign body gets into the lung and is also a symptom of cystic fibrosis.

Complications

Where the coughing is caused by an inhaled foreign body, this can lead to severe bouts of coughing and, if the problem is acute, the child may go blue and start choking. Even if this does not happen, however, the incident may be followed by a high temperature a few days later. If this happen it means that part of the lung has become infected. A young baby who catches whooping cough can become very ill indeed. Nearly all deaths from whooping cough occur during the first year of life. The baby may develop lung complication, inhale vomit after a bout of coughing or suffer from insufficient food if frequent bouts of coughing are followed by vomiting. Any child who develops a croupy cough should get medical treatment at once.

Treatment

As far as possible, the cause of the cough should be treated, not the cough itself. Antibiotics are used for treating infections such as sinusitis, bronchitis, tonsillitis and pneumonia. Nose drops, decongestants and antihistamines can be used to treat allergies that cause runny noses. Special drugs are necessary for asthma. A foreign body in the lungs needs urgent medical attention and a habit cough needs understanding of the child’s problem, not medicine to stop the cough. The majority of cough will clear up as soon as the cause disappears or is successfully treated. Coughs caused by colds are quite normal and will keep on happening all through childhood.

Whooping Cough-Causes,Symptoms

 What Is Whooping Cough ?

Whooping cough or pertussis to give it its medical name, is an infectious illness that an be caught by children of any age. It is most common between the first and fifth year but after the age of nine it is rare. It is usually among childhood infections because of the length of time it lasts; it can take anything up to three or four months for a child to recover completely. During its course, children suffer numerous bouts of coughing that can be so severe that they are left gasping for breath. This gasping, combined with the narrowing of the air passage in the throat, causes the whoop as air inhaled-hence the name of the disease. Although largely preventable by immunization, public anxiety about the safety of the vaccine has led to fewer children receiving it in recent years and this has resulted in epidemics of the disease. 

Causes

The illness is produced by infection with a bacterium called Bordetella pertussis. When a person with the disease coughs, large numbers of the bacterium are expelled in tiny airborne droplets. If these are breathed in by people who have neither been immunized nor had the disease before, they may become infected. This infectious stage occurs during the first two or three weeks of the illness and children in the same house or classroom are likely to catch it.

Symptoms

At first, during the seven to ten day incubation period, there is no way of knowing that a child has caught whooping cough because there are no symptoms. The disease itself begins in exactly the same way as a common cold but, after about a week, it becomes obvious that it is no ordinary cold. Although the temperature is only slightly raised, the cough steadily worsens and the child has difficulty in clearing the nose, throat and air tubes of thick, sticky mucus.After about 10 to 40 days, true coughing spasms being to occur. The child can cough up to 20 or 30 times rapid succession. Because the child is unable to take a breath between each cough, the face can become red, then blue, often with the eyes bulging and mouth drooling. For a few moments the child may seem to have stopped breathing but then will take an enormous gulp of air, sometimes making a whooping noise as the air rushes past the vocal cords into the lungs. At the end of the spasms vary severity and frequency from one child to another and may occur as little as four times daily or as much as 40. This coughing-spasms stage lasts from one to two weeks, and the slightest upset, movement, change of room temperature or drought may provoke a spasm. Smaller children, particularly, are easily frightened during these spasms, and babies rapidly become exhausted. Babies under a year are the most seriously affected - probably because during the bouts of coughing their vocal cords close completely, temporarily preventing air from getting into the lungs. As the illness declines, the coughing bouts become less severe and the whoop disappears. An unpleasant cough may continue for two or three months, however, during which time the child feels generally under the weather. A few lucky children, including those who develop the illness despite being immunized, may shake off the illness in a much shorter time. In a typical case diagnosis is simple. However, some children neither whoop nor have prolonged coughing spasms so the disease should be suspected when any child has a bad cough that continues for more than two weeks. There are other illness which have similar symptoms to cough, such as infections causing enlargement of glands adjacent to the bronchi (large air tubes leading into the lung), and mild case may be difficult to distinguish from bronchitis. Also, an infant who inhales something - such as food going down the wrong way a small toy, bead, or peanut may cough is spasms, but this will not have been preceded by a period of mild coughing, a cold and a temperature the typical whooping cough symptoms. Where there is doubt, a doctor can confirm the diagnosis by sending a sample of mucus, taken from the back of the nose, to a laboratory for testing. Alternatively, a blood test will give a good indication of the presence of whooping cough.Learn More

Whooping Cough-Complication And Immunization

Complication

The most severe, although rare, complication is a convulsion. This may occur when the baby or child goes blue at the end of a spasm. In general, these first are harmless but sometimes they are a sign of encephalitis (brain inflammation) which can be fatal or leave behind permanent brain damage. Hospital treatment is essential in this case. It is possible that pneumonia may occur when the whoop disappears. This can be detected if the child develops rapid, shallow breathing and a rise in temperature. In other patients, thick mucus may block one or more of the bronchi (air tubes) causing parts of the lung to lose their air and collapse. Most of these children recover with the use of antibiotics and physiotherapy but some may be left with permanent lung weakness. Other complications are related to the force of coughing: the eyes may become very bloodshot, a hernia (rupture) may appear as a swelling at the groin or or navel, or there may be rectal prolapse (the lining of the lower bowel is forced out through the back passage). Drugs have virtually no effect on the illness. An antibiotics is often advised during the first two weeks but this is to prevent the bacteria from spreading to other children rather than to cure the sick child. Numerous remedies have been tried, including cough mixture, antispasmodics and drops which are supposed to paralyze the nerves involved in coughing. There is no firm evidence that any are effective but your doctor may think one or two of them are worth trying. Children who are fearful and anxious may be calmed by small doses of a sedative. Many parents find the illness too alarming to cope with in small infants so hospital admission may have to arranged through the family doctor. In hospital, oxygen and an electrically-driven suction device that removes mucus during a spasm are the mainstays of treatment. Those few children who have convulsions or collapsed lung can be treated with physiotherapy. Quarantine of contacts is not always possible but babies should be kept away from brothers or sisters with the illness. Nearly all children recover completely without any complications, and lifelong immunity is achieved from a single attack. Patients are no longer infectious after three weeks and can then return to school as soon as they feel up to it.

Immunization

There is a vaccine for whooping cough which can be given in three doses, usually combined with diphtheria and tetanus, at six-weekly intervals from the age of three months. The vaccine is highly, but not totally, protective. However, those who develop whooping cough despite being immunized tend to have it very mildly, often without the distressing whoop. In recent years, controversy has arisen over the use of whooping cough vaccine. It has been linked with brain damage and even death in your children. At present, there is no way of proving conclusively that the vaccine is responsible for these effects since idetical conditions can occur without the child ever having been vaccinated. Studies and medical statistics have shown that the risk of brain damage and death from complications of whooping cough is much greater than the apparent risks of vaccination. Children who are known to have a pre-existing brain disease, who have had fits or who have a parent, brother or sister who has epilepsy, not due to head injury, should not be immunized. So far as other children are concerned, parents must make a decision based on their feelings and the advice they receive from the family doctor.

Children Health

Why My Child Always Sick ?

The average pre-school child suffer six respiratory infection (cough, colds, tonsillitis and ear infection) each year. If any large group of children is carefully examined, a small number will be found to have no illness, an equally small number will have them extremely often and the majority will lie somewhere in between. Although it would it seem to largely a matter of luck as to whether a child is prone to coughs and colds or not, there are one or two influencing factor. Age is an important factor : the worst ages is an between six months and two years, and seven. For the first six months children are protected from infection by antibodies from their mother’s blood and possibly breast milk. In addition they are not in close contact with lost of other children with whom germs might be exchanged. In the next 18 months they are likely to catch whatever is affecting other children with whom they mix. This is because they have not yet build up any immunity to the hundreds of micro-organisms that surround them. By the age of  two their resistance is improving as the body steadily memorizes all the germs which have attacked it and prepares defenses against them. The next run of infections tends to occur when the child enters a play group or nursery at the age of three by a further assault at school entry. The reason is simply that the child comes into close contact with larger numbers of children form whom infection can be caught. The child’s immunity gradually builds up and coughs and colds lessen. Other factors are known to put children at a disadvantage: boys suffer more infections than girls; those born prematurely have slightly more. And those children whose parents smoke unquestionably experience more chest troubles in their infancy than the children of non-smokers, possibly because tobacco smoke in the air damages the tiny hairs lining the breathing tubes which move dust and mucus out of the lungs. Breast-fed, possibly because of anti-infection material in human milk. Then there are environmental and social considerations. Town dwellers and the child of a professional couple will be likely to have far fewer coughs and colds than that of an unemployed or unskilled working class couple. The reasons for this relationship between social class and a child’s illnesses are many and may include the most important influence is probably overcrowding: the more children in contact with one another the greater the chances of infection. After all these factor are taken into account there remain some children who have more than their fair share of trouble. Some may have allergies which mimic infection: asthma can be mistaken simply for a persistent cough, allergic rhinitis for a continual cold. A few may have unexplained overgrowth of their tonsils and  adenoids contributing to ear and throat infections. And some older children may have developed chronic sinusitis an infection within hollow spaces between certain bones which acts as a reservoir for chest infection. A tiny number of children may even have an abnormality of the body’s complex immunity system. In many cases, however, it remains a mystery why some children are virtually infection-free while others rarely seem to be fit for very long.