Common childhood infections: Symptoms & treatment

No matter how much you try to boost your little one’s immunity by ensuring that he eats healthily and takes both probiotics and multivitamins when he’s exposed to others who have these bugs, he can still get sick. So it’s a good idea to know what you’re dealing with, how to treat it, and when to seek medical help. We take a look at some of the most common childhood infections and conditions.

Diarrhoea

Causes and symptoms: The causes are mostly viral, but sometimes bacteria or parasites are the culprits. Symptoms include a ‘runny tummy’, vomiting, fever, and tummy cramps.

Medical treatment: Keep your child well-hydrated by giving him an oral rehydration solution (ask your pharmacist) and lots of other fluids. Zinc, probiotic, and specific anti-diarrhoea medications such as Tasectan and Smecta are both safe to use in children over six months.

Natural approach: Watch what your child eats. Avoid milk, wheat, roughage, and sugar products, and stick to oats cooked in water, with grated apple, as well as mashed banana, steamed veggies, and rice or millet. Weak camomile tea is a good mainstay. It soothes the gut and relieves inflammation and pain. Arsenicum album and Belladonna also work well.

SOS Action: Keep your child at home until he’s symptom-free.

Seek professional help if: The diarrhoea continues for longer than 48 hours, if your child isn’t drinking, or if he vomits up everything he drinks, as he can become dehydrated very quickly.

Gastro Enteritis

Causes and symptoms: Gastroenteritis is an infection of the gut, usually caused by a virus. It may also cause vomiting and abdominal pain.

Medical treatment: Essentially the same as with diarrhoea, and antibiotics are seldom necessary.

Natural approach: Same as for diarrhoea, but your natural health practitioner can also advise you about other specific remedies.

SOS Action: Keep your child at home until he’s completely better.

Seek professional help if: Your child is still not well within 48 hours; if there’s blood in the stool, a high fever, lethargy, or any sign of dehydration: fewer wet nappies, less urine output, or a sunken ‘soft spot’ (the fontanel on top of his head).

The Common Cold

Causes and symptoms: Colds tend to be mild, with low-grade fever, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, watery eyes, and swollen glands. They’re caused by a viral infection – usually the rhinoviruses – via airborne droplets and contact.

Medical treatment: Treatment is supportive: rest, lots of fluids, paracetamol and ibuprofen for fever, saline nose sprays, and paediatric cough syrups for cough.

Natural approach: Essential oils like eucalyptus, pine, peppermint, cedarwood, rosemary, niaouli, basil, cloves, and thyme. Tea tree and Lemon are all very useful to relieve congestion, inflammation, mucus, and breathing difficulties. Rub it onto the chest, the sinus areas, and nose, or use it as inhalers with steam. Herbs and vitamins are helpful, too, especially Echinacea, astragalus, vitamin C, and zinc, while your natural healthcare practitioner will advise about specific remedies like aconite, belladonna, and alliums cepa.

SOS Action: Keep your child at home if his nose is streaming with yellow or green mucus, and definitely if he has a fever.

Seek professional help if: The cold doesn’t clear up within a few days or if symptoms worsen or change.

Flu

Causes and symptoms: Flu is also a viral infection with symptoms the same as a common cold, but they develop far more rapidly and are generally far worse and last a lot longer. Aside from developing cold symptoms, your little one may also have body aches, joint pains, headache, diarrhoea, vomiting, and a high fever, which is very dangerous in young children.

Medical treatment: Symptomatic, the same as for the common cold. It’s vital to bring down the fever (which will make your child miserable), so alternate with paracetamol and ibuprofen every six hours.

Natural approach: Aside from alleviating symptoms in the same way as a cold (see above), there are a number of homeopathic remedies, such as eupatorium and ferrum phosphoricum, or tissue salt no 4, that will help your child. Chat to your natural healthcare practitioner about flu-specific homeopathic preparations that can be safely taken by the whole family (including young infants), such as oscillococcinum.

SOS Action: Keep your child at home until he’s symptom-free and has been fever-free for 24 hours.

Seek professional help if: He has a temperature over 39°, or a temperature under 39° that persists for three days, and if symptoms worsen or your child deteriorates, as he may have picked up a secondary infection leading to complications such as pneumonia.

Ear infections

Causes and symptoms: Ear infections may be either viral or bacterial, with symptoms like earache, fever, runny nose, discharge from the ear, vomiting, coughing, and feeling miserable. He may pull or touch ears a lot.

Medical treatment: Includes rest, plenty of fluids, decongestants like Iliadin, nose drops, and paracetamol or ibuprofen for pain and fever. Antibiotics are not always necessary but consult your healthcare practitioner.

Natural approach: You need to be very careful if you plan to go it alone. Your child’s eardrum can perforate and his hearing can be compromised, so rather consult your natural healthcare practitioner to determine the severity. Ear infections can be successfully treated without antibiotics if they’re watched very closely if they’re not too severe, and they’re treated with specific natural remedies like Apis, Belladonna, and Hepar Sulph.

SOS Action: Keep your child at home if he’s in pain or if there’s any inflammation or fever.

Seek professional help: Right from start.