How to know when a child has a serious problem and when not?.
The first time being a parent is a great feeling but sometimes it’s scary especially when the child is sick. But when your child has little cough or have some redness on their skin, is panicking you. How to know when a child has a serious problems and when it is only symptoms that are not worrisome.
Here are 6 dangerous symptoms that appear in young children that you should never ignore.
Pale Lips
According to Dr. Carrie Drazba, a pediatrician at the Rush Medical University in Chicago (USA), if the young child lips turn green or the tongue of the child turns green or any other color, this is a warning sign that children are not being provided enough oxygen. You should meet a doctor soon at this time.
Heavy Breath
If you find your child has shortness of breath or fast breathing, you may find that your child has to use chest muscles to breathe, which may be a sign of respiratory distress. Respiratory distress syndrome common in respiratory infections, causes especially pneumonia in children, can be dangerous for children if not treated promptly.
What should you do?
Immediately contact the pediatrician for advice and immediately send the child to the emergency room.
High fever above 38 O C in newborns
If your child is under three months old and has a rectal temperature above 38 O C, you should contact your pediatrician right away. Neonatal fever is an atypical symptom. The cause may be a cold or may be a symptom of meningitis, the treatment of neonatal fever relief is much more difficult in newborns.
What should you do?
Check rectal area temperature for newborns because other test methods are often inaccurate with this subject.
Infants may be hospitalized to do some tests to find the cause of the fever. Fever is usually not a dangerous symptom in older children when their immune system is completed but we should be very careful in the case of a newborn baby.
Status of jaundice
If new born baby skin gets more yellow after birth, then children may have jaundice. Not all cases of jaundice are dangerous. Some cases are just normal physiological phenomena and will go away on their own, but if the skin becomes worse, it may need to be reviewed.
Bilirubin is produced by the liver. When a baby is born, because the child’s liver function is not working properly, bilirubin can accumulate in the body and cause jaundice.
If the concentration of bilirubin is skyrocketed, it can affect the child’s brain, causing seizures and irreversible damage.
What should you do?
Most doctors recommend more and more breast feeding so that new born baby should able to eliminate bilirubin by the stool.
The next step is to expose children to UV rays (phototherapy) to increase the degradation of bilirubin. If the level of bilirubin in the blood is too high, blood transfusion is necessary.
Note that home care or phototherapy is sufficient to lower bilirubin levels to a standard level from which the body can self-eradicate.
Dehydration
If you don’t see your baby’s diaper getting wet, we should think about the possibility of dehydration. Other signs of dehydration include dry mouth, deep sunken eyes and coma.
What should you do?
Call your pediatrician immediately for advice. Your doctor may recommend breastfeeding or supplement with formula. Water supplementation is often not really beneficial in these cases because it can increase the amount of sodium in the body and cause seizures.
In case you find your child lethargic or narcotic, take your child to an emergency immediately.
Spitting out green phlegm
Children often spit as much as when they cough, cry, overeat or stomach problems.
However, the problem will be quite serious if children spit out green phlegm or vomit coffee-colored sputum.
Green sputum is a sign of intestinal obstruction that requires immediate intervention. Coffee-colored sputum is a symptom of gastrointestinal bleeding. Vomiting after a head injury also needs to be checked because it can be a sign of trauma or bleeding within the skull.
What should you do?
It is best to take your child to the emergency room. The pediatrician’s assessment and examination should be immediately available when the child is vomiting green or coffee-colored sputum.
Children with head injury with or without vomiting should also be thoroughly examined. In these cases it is best to consult with your doctor to get appropriate management measures for your child.
