How to Treat a Child With a Cold

The common cold doesn't just affect millions of adults each year. children are just as susceptible to its effects, sometimes even more so. When your child is out on the playground, or just sitting at his or her desk in class, the potential for catching a cold is always high, particularly during the winter months of the flu and cold season. You'll want to treat your child right away to help relieve the symptoms as well as try to decrease the duration of the cold itself.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Over-the-counter medication
• Medical advice (for severe cases)

Treat a Child with a Cold

1. Allow the child to get plenty of rest. Rest is one of the most important tools you have to treat a cold, allowing the body itself to fight off the cold virus. Administer cold remedies such as child-strength Ny-Quil to help your child sleep if she is uncomfortable and markedly restless at night.

2. Use any of the available over-the-counter nonprescription medications available to see which are the most effective for your child. Robitussen, Day-Quil and Sudafed, for example, are known to have an effect on the severity of cold symptoms in children and adults alike.

3. Introduce ample humidity to the child's room while they recover from a cold. Humidity can help to break up the mucous and phlegm that can inhibit good breathing. Also consider using vapor rubs to relieve symptoms of congestion.

4. Give plenty of fluids to a child with a cold. Ample hydration helps whenever diarrhea or vomiting occur along with the other more common cold symptoms, and is thought to help flush the system and speed recovery.

5. Consider giving your child zinc lozenges to treat his cold. Zinc lozenges can cause nausea, and in very high doses are thought to create copper deficiencies, but zink lozenges have been shown to help reduce the duration and severity of the common cold.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear gloves and some form of mask while you treat your child if you can't afford to get sick yourself. Both precautions can dramatically reduce the risk of transmission. Also consider using an alcohol based hand sanitizer before and after you treat your child.
• If your child's fever rises above 104 degrees F, seek immediate medical attention. This can be a symptom of influenza, known to have a far more dangerous impact on children than in adults.
• Do not, under any circumstances, administer aspirin if your child has a cold or is running a fever. In clinical studies, aspirin has been shown to increase the risk of the development of Reye's Syndrome.

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