First-time parents, baby with cough and mucus: to the pediatrician. Parents with older children: they try to relieve the symptoms, aware of the natural tendency to spontaneously develop the cold until it heals, probably after those first visits to the doctor. So, When to take the pediatrician to the cramped child?
Colds that are not complicated heal on their own and do not need treatment with medicines. Parental surveillance should be directed towards the detection of possible complications, mainly caused by bacteria: otitis, sinusitis, purulent conjunctivitis or pneumonia.
The alarm symptoms What should be consulted with the pediatrician are: the persistence of fever more than three days, ear pain, difficulty breathing, persistence of more than 10 days of thick yellow or greenish nasal mucus, or decay.
The Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics points out that on other occasions it will be directly the common sense of the parents or the desire to resolve a doubt, who advise them to consult with health professionals.
Since there is no cold vaccine globally, what we can do is try to prevent it.
There are those who recommend a "partial solution" such as annual flu vaccination (after six months, if they go to daycare), but knowing that who receives it is only protected against the specific influenza virus (virus influenzae A and B) and not against the rest of the possible causes of catarrhal symptoms.
Another preventive strategy, more difficult to carry out, is to avoid exposure to cramped people. This, with school-age children, is impossible.
Finally, remember that frequent handwashing is one of the best habits to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases.
Thus, hopefully, we will not have to bring the cold child to the pediatrician when complications occur. However, with young children it is difficult to avoid colds.
