The appearance of a night cough in a child always greatly alarms parents, especially in cases where the baby is cheerful and cheerful during the day. According to Dr. Komarovsky, there are many reasons for such a night cough in a child. It could be an infection. Inflammation or allergic reaction, for example, to down in pillows. Night cough- This is just a consequence, but not the root cause of the disease. If such symptoms appear, you need to act immediately, since prolonged coughing attacks prevent the child from sleeping properly and greatly disturb his condition.
The causes of night cough are quite varied. According to Dr. Komarovsky, you should not immediately look for the cause in serious pathologies. But such cough attacks cannot be called harmless. Most often similar symptom happens in such cases:
According to Evgeniy Komarovsky, these are the main causes of night coughing in children. Almost all of these conditions are not pathological and are easily eliminated. They most often occur without fever or other symptoms.
In young children, attacks of night cough may occur when changing bed linen. This is caused by an allergy to detergents.
In many babies, when they are in a horizontal position, viscous sputum accumulates in the upper respiratory tract. In small children respiratory organs are not yet fully developed, so sputum is removed with great difficulty. This is why the child tries to clear his throat.
There are also many other causes of night cough in children. Mostly, a child’s cough at night occurs due to infectious and respiratory diseases. Before you begin to treat this symptom, it is necessary to determine exactly what is causing it.
In this case, in addition to a night cough, severe shortness of breath and noisy breathing, which can be heard even at a distance. With this disease, the child cannot sleep normally, so his condition is severely disturbed. If a baby’s coughing attacks are associated with bronchial asthma, then the child may complain of pain in the heart and chest.
Starting to cough during good sleep, the baby quickly rises and takes a pose characteristic of asthmatics, focusing on his hands. When trying to clear his throat, the baby puts in a lot of effort, which is why he sweats a lot.
For treatment bronchial asthma are used inhalation drugs. These may be drugs like Ventolin or hormonal agents. The doctor selects them individually.
Children who suffer from allergies often suffer from bronchial asthma. Some allergens can trigger an asthma attack.
The same cough is observed with chronic runny nose and sinusitis. To eliminate coughing attacks, it is necessary to initially pay attention to the root cause of this phenomenon. If the disease is caused by sinusitis, then antibiotics and nasal rinses are used. For pharyngitis, inhalations and gargling with decoctions will be useful. medicinal herbs and different solutions.
To improve your baby's sleep, before going to bed he needs to breathe through a nebulizer with saline or alkaline solution mineral water. Thanks to this, the mucous membrane will soften and the soreness will disappear.
Coughing attacks at night in a child may be associated with whooping cough. This disease is difficult to confuse with some other pathology, since the resulting cough is quite specific. Main symptoms of this disease are:
After suffering from whooping cough, the child receives lasting immunity; if he gets sick again, the disease progresses in mild form.
Whooping cough cough lasts approximately 3 months. It is not for nothing that people call this disease the disease of a hundred days. Only after this period has passed does the baby stop coughing completely.
You can reduce coughing attacks at night by inhaling steam. To do this, you need to take the child into the bathroom, close the door and run boiling water into the bathtub or sink. Moist air softens the respiratory tract.
Often coughing attacks in a child occur at night and when the adenoids are enlarged. In this case, the cough is unproductive and exhausting. In this case, it may not stand out large number purulent sputum. Thick mucus accumulates in the nose and flows down the throat during sleep, causing tickling and a coughing attack.
Adenoiditis in children should be treated as early as possible. Parents should remember that stages 1-2 of the disease are easily treated conservative treatment, and if the disease is severely advanced, then only surgery can help. When treating adenoiditis, you can resort to prescriptions traditional medicine, but they must be agreed with the doctor.
If the adenoids have grown greatly and affected the auditory tube, then the child may have hearing loss.
Digestive tract diseasesIn this case general condition the child’s daytime is not disturbed, and the temperature remains normal. When the baby assumes a horizontal position, gastric juice enters the esophagus and larynx, causing irritation and severe coughing. In some cases of illness gastrointestinal tract accompanied by vomiting at night.
If cough attacks are triggered by allergies, the cough begins suddenly, it is dry and barking. Occasionally, children with allergies produce a little viscous sputum. It is not difficult to recognize an allergy, since the baby not only coughs a lot, but also sneezes often. The baby's eyes turn red and there is lacrimation. In addition, the baby may be bothered by a sore throat and itchy skin.
Before starting treatment for allergies, it is necessary to eliminate the factors that provoked the attack. Many parents know what can cause a cough attack and quickly eliminate the cause. In case of allergies, the child must be given antihistamines.
It is impossible to cure allergies completely, but you can eliminate unpleasant symptoms and improve the patient’s quality of life.
The disease most often begins acutely, with a high fever. The cough is initially dry and debilitating, but after a couple of days it becomes wet. The baby complains of a sore throat and severe sore throat.
Lozenges and gargling with a baking soda solution can help. You can put a compress on your neck, which will also reduce the pain.
And these are not all the reasons for night cough in children. May cause painful attacks cold air and tracheitis. Infection of a child with worms can lead to coughing at night; in this case, a dry cough is observed, which is accompanied by abdominal pain. Only a doctor can identify the exact cause of this phenomenon, and he also selects the optimal treatment.
A child’s cough at night, but no symptoms during the day, is a sign of a certain disease. To eliminate it, it is necessary to treat the underlying ailment that caused it. You can improve the child’s condition with the help of syrups, tablets and other means, but the disease can be cured only with the help of well-chosen treatment. Let's try to figure out what contributes to this development of events and how to stop coughing at night.
Cough is very common. Intensification at night occurs as a result of the fact that in a horizontal position, the distribution of fluid in the body is even, and not, as usual, rushing to the legs. As a result, mucus accumulates and the cough worsens.
Such a cough can be provoked by the most various diseases. For example, gastroesophageal reflux can cause a child to cough at night. It is possible to recognize the disease earlier in children at an older age, as they can explain the attacks of heartburn that they experience.
In infants it occurs nocturnally. The child simply choke on saliva, which at this moment is released in large quantities, and begins to cough. During this period, put the baby to sleep on his side, and place a small mattress under his head.
A night cough may also indicate the presence of dry air in the room where the child sleeps. Fixing this problem is very simple, just ventilate the room. You can also use improvised means, for example, lay a damp towel on the radiator.
If, when the child goes to bed, during the night cough the child still grinds his teeth, then this is obvious signs runny nose, inflammation of the pharynx and trachea. In addition, night creaking in combination with cough can occur for the following reasons:
Often a cough at night is accompanied by a runny nose. In this case, the child does not have a rise in temperature. The causes of such symptoms are infectious or allergic reactions.
Cough and severe rhinitis with normal indicators temperatures indicate colds viral origin. If there is bacterial diseases, then a rise in temperature is observed. If treatment is not timely, the following consequences may occur:
A viral cold greatly weakens the immune system, which facilitates the addition of a bacterial infection. In the background common cold Chronic ailments can wake up and pathogenic microorganisms come into action.
Symptoms such as coughing and snot at night are often a manifestation of an allergic reaction. As in the previous case, there is no rise in body temperature. Allergies cause the following symptoms:
To understand the nature of cough, it is important to know the symptoms of its individual types.
Allergies can occur for the following reasons:
Often a cough occurs at night after a long illness. Most often these are manifestations of inflammatory and allergic bronchitis, which take chronic form. Thus, the baby will experience a cough at the acute stage. Besides the cough, little patient can visit a strong OTC of the bronchial mucosa. As a result, breathing becomes worse and an intense cough occurs. 
Another disease that can leave a mark in the form of a night cough is called respiratory syncytial virus. It affects children during the first 2 years. This disease most often occurs when the baby visits kindergarten. Characteristic symptoms of the disease are swelling of the bronchial mucosa, poor air passage and obstruction of the lower respiratory tract. After some time, the baby may experience shortness of breath, prolonged exhalation and convulsions. A suppressive cough strikes him at night.
You should not give your child antibiotics to treat a cough. If it is wet, you should not give antitussives, and if it is dry, you should not give expectorants. Particular care must be taken when rubbing small patients. Antihistamines should not be used without a doctor's approval. If you want to make it easier for your child to sleep during a coughing attack, then you just need to change his body position.
If coughing attacks do not leave the car for a long time and all the recommendations presented above do not give the desired effect, then you need to urgently go to the clinic. There, the doctor will be able to determine the causes of night cough and prescribe effective treatment to eliminate it.
Dr. Komarovsky recommends spending more time with your child in the fresh air to relieve attacks of night cough. This is exactly what is the best prevention drying out mucus. Special attention Requires a runny nose of the crumbs. The child's nose must not be allowed to breathe. Otherwise, he will inhale air through his mouth, and this contributes to the degeneration of mucus.
If the child has, in addition to a cough, high temperature, then this also dries out mucous secretions. In this case, Komarovsky advises giving the baby antipyretic drugs. They are produced in the form of syrup and candles. But before using them, you need to consult a specialist.
This video will tell you about the causes of cough and its treatment:
To relieve attacks of night cough, Komarovsky advises using massage. But it is allowed to be carried out only on the condition that the child normal temperature bodies. Place the baby on your knees so that the head is below the fifth point. Place 2 fingers on your back in the lung area. Perform light and smooth tapping with the fingers of the other hand. Such activities will promote the removal of sputum naturally. As a result, the disease will begin to leave the child’s body.
Komarovsky does not recommend using medications that inhibit the cough reflex or dilute mucus with the help of chemical components; it is unwise to use them without a doctor’s permission. Such treatment will only allow you to forget about the symptoms, but will not eliminate the disease itself.
The cough itself is very unpleasant symptom, and especially if it occurred at night. And it doesn’t matter what nature it is - viral or allergic - it must be treated. If treatment is not started in time, the disease can take a chronic form, and it will be almost impossible to cure it.
It’s rare that a mother will be able to be in a calm state when her baby breaks into a coughing fit in the nursery at night. What to do to treat a child’s night cough, which prevents him from getting proper rest and worries his parents? Before dealing with night coughs, it is necessary to determine the culprit of the syndrome.
When the baby is in a horizontal position at night, mucus accumulates in the upper respiratory tract. In children, the pulmonary apparatus is not yet perfect, the respiratory bronchial tubes have a small lumen, and the removal of mucus is difficult. The body, trying to get rid of phlegm, provokes the development of a reflex.
There are many reasons for a child’s night cough; prolonged attacks often develop due to colds and infectious diseases. Before treating a child’s night cough, pay attention to the type of reflex:
Pharyngitis, rhinitis, sinusitis. Dry, irritating cough. It differs in the duration of the attacks. The baby complains of soreness and tingling in the throat. Choking and coughing are observed during the interval between the main attack.
Asthmatic bronchitis. The symptom passes with whistling and wheezing breathing. With an asthmatic night cough, the child develops shortness of breath,
It's hard to breathe. The baby complains of pain in the sternum near the heart.
Whooping cough. Whooping cough consists of 5-10 shocks. They follow non-stop, not allowing the child to breathe. Trying to take in air, the baby makes a whistling sound. The cough is loud, barking and wet, with copious sputum. Mucus is viscous and glassy. In small children, it can separate through the nostrils in bubbles.
Whooping cough often leads to vomiting caused by copious amounts of mucus. The baby's face turns red, trying to clear his throat, he sticks out his tongue and tenses. The cough is so strong that it completely exhausts the child, leading him to exhaustion.
Adenoiditis. The cough symptom for adenoids is characterized by dryness and difficult to separate purulent sputum. Night cough develops even with advanced disease, when viscous mucus accumulates in the nasal passages, descends into the respiratory tract and irritates the laryngeal mucosa.
Gastroesophageal reflux. This pathology is characterized by a dry night cough without fever and sore throat. Manifestations of the syndrome are similar to coughs due to bronchitis or allergies. Strong coughing can cause vomiting and nausea in a child.
Allergy. An allergic night cough begins suddenly. It is loud, barking and often dry (when wet, the child produces clear mucus). An allergic cough goes away with a runny nose and sneezing, but without fever. The child may complain of itching and sore throat.
Colds, flu, parainfluenza. The syndrome develops suddenly, and a high temperature may rise rapidly. Chills and fever are observed. At the onset of the disease, night cough is characterized by dryness and severe debilitating attacks. The child complains of a sore throat and sore throat.
Tracheitis. At the beginning of the development of the disease, dry, paroxysmal cough. Painful attacks often occur in the morning. The symptom is accompanied by severe, raw pain in the throat.
In small babies, an attack often develops while crying or screaming. At the same time, the temperature rises (up to +30-40⁰ C), headaches are observed.
Worm infestations. Helminthiasis is becoming a common cause of dry cough in a child at night. Helminthic infestations provoke the development of the syndrome at night without symptoms accompanying other diseases (sore throat, chills, fever). Children complain of abdominal pain, nausea, dizziness and upset bowel movements.
A child may develop a night cough due to dry, cold air in the room. The attacks disturb the baby, preventing him from sleeping peacefully during teething, when a lot of saliva is formed and it flows into the larynx area, provoking a cough reflex.
When the baby long time he is bothered by a cough at night, during the day he feels tired and exhausted, he should immediately seek help in treatment from a pediatrician. Don't self-medicate! Find out the real culprit of the child’s night cough and prescribe competent treatment Only a pediatrician can.
If your baby has a persistent cough symptom at night, he should be examined by a pediatrician. When identifying diseases, the doctor’s main task is to treat the child for a disease caused by cough. To relieve nighttime coughing attacks, the doctor prescribes treatment depending on the type of reflex:
Dry. The child is prescribed antitussives that affect the cough center (located in the brain stem). Such drugs created for pediatric treatment, include:
Pediatricians also advise paying attention to children's antitussive medications that act on receptors: levopront, libexin and antitussive medicines: broncholithin and stoptussin.
Wet. To relieve a cough in a child that resolves with wet expectoration, pediatricians prescribe medications for treatment that help clear the bronchi and lungs of accumulated mucus: bronchicum elixir, marshmallow and Doctor Mom syrups, pectusin.
Most mothers do not want to treat their child medicinal syrups and potions, giving preference to methods people's pharmacy. An effective remedy Natural buckwheat honey is used in the treatment of night coughs (honey should not be given to a child with allergies). The tasty medicine should be given to the child to suck in the evening.
Warm milk is a good treatment. It can be mixed with baking soda(¼ teaspoon) and melted honey (5-6 ml).
Be sure to give your child warm berry fruit drinks and raspberry tea. Pharmacies will also offer ready-made herbal medicines for children. medicinal fees for treatment:
Herbal teas have been created and selected for the treatment of children over 6 years old, and collection number 4 can be given to children as young as 2 years old.
Potato compresses also help treat night coughs (numerous reviews indicate the effectiveness of such treatment). A couple of hot boiled potatoes are mashed and alcohol, mustard (½ tsp), interior fat and honey (a tablespoon each) are added to the puree.
A cake is made from the mixture and applied to the baby’s back and chest. First, the baby’s body is covered with film and cotton wool with a layer of 3-4 cm. The compress is tied on top with a warm scarf and kept for 1-1.5 hours.
Inhalations and rubbing should not be performed on infants under six months of age; taking antihistamines to treat allergies is also contraindicated for them. To make it easier for them night sleep, change the position of the baby in the crib more often. This will prevent mucus from accumulating in your baby's nose.
Parents are also required to know what children are strictly forbidden to do when they have a night cough. When treating the syndrome, you should not give your child antibiotics. If there is a symptom with sputum, it is forbidden to give the baby antitussives, and if there is a dry cough, do not give expectorants.
Pediatricians say that in relieving night cough syndrome, special diet therapy provides effective treatment. Include the following dishes in your child’s daily menu:
Children put on a healing diet recover faster, because such products increase vitality and immunity of the body, provoke coughing and actively relieve bronchospasm.
Pay close attention to your child’s health and at the first signs of illness, seek advice from a doctor. Only by joint efforts with the pediatrician will parents be able to help the baby get rid of the painful night cough.
Health to your baby!
Attacks of night cough torment the child and interfere with sleep for both him and his parents. When your baby wakes up at night and coughs profusely for a long time, it is impossible to remain unperturbed and you want to help the baby as quickly as possible. But to do this, you need to understand why cough appears at night and how it is treated.
Cough protrudes protective function designed to rid a person of excess phlegm, bacteria or foreign bodies V respiratory system. If a baby coughs during the day, as a rule, this symptom intensifies at night, since supine position Less oxygen enters the lungs, and phlegm accumulates.
The main causes of dry cough at night are:
The absence of fever during night coughing attacks may indicate the allergic nature of this symptom. In this case, the child may often experience symptoms such as a runny nose, sore and itchy throat, tearfulness and redness of the mucous membranes of the eyes. As a rule, attacks of dry allergic cough appear due to the presence of an allergen nearby, for example, because of the new washing powder that mom used to wash bed linen or curtains, because of a down pillow, or because of flying plant pollen that enters the children's room from an open window.
First of all, a child with a coughing attack should be reassured, since many children under 5 years of age develop severe fear during such attacks at night. Also, if a cough appears at night, the child should be given a warm drink, for example, tea with honey or raspberries. Good effect is drinking alkaline before bed mineral water, from which gas is released. Another popular recipe that has shown to be effective for dry coughs is warmed milk with a little honey and soda added.
It is also important to humidify the room and ventilate it. Sometimes, to eliminate a dry night cough, it is enough to change the child’s sleeping position - turn him on his side or put a high pillow on him. If a dry cough recurs and is not eliminated by such measures, be sure to take your child to the doctor.
In the treatment of dry night cough, it is important to determine the cause of this symptom, since in each case the treatment will be different. If the cough is allergic, it is important to eliminate the allergen and consult a doctor who will select the appropriate one. antihistamine. If the cause of the cough is bacterial infection, the child will need to be given antibiotics, which will be prescribed by the pediatrician.
Medicines used for coughing at night may affect:
A pediatrician should prescribe such medications, since if the drug is chosen incorrectly, in many cases they can further worsen the child’s condition, and some drugs are not compatible with each other.
A popular doctor calls cough a protective symptom and calls for treating not it, but the disease that manifests itself in this way. Komarovsky is confident that he will get rid of dry cough great importance has access fresh air and drink a lot. A well-known pediatrician recommends treating coughs to all parents with such simple measures, assuring that the use medicines has the same effectiveness.
For more information about this, see Dr. Komarovsky’s program about cough.
Parents are often bothered by a child’s cough at night; Komarovsky sees the reasons for allergic reactions or viral infection. If a cough appears systematically, then this is a reason to find out its causes.
Coughing is a reflex action of ridding the body's respiratory tract of excess mucus or foreign bodies. If you do not understand the reasons for its appearance, then all treatment methods, such as taking antiviral medications, various inhalations or traditional medicine will have no effect.
Evgeniy Komarovsky classifies a child’s cough as a symptom of some disease, the treatment of which is impossible without understanding the reasons that provoked it.
The situation when a child coughs in his sleep most often causes a feeling of concern in parents. A child's sleep at night is much more sensitive than that of an adult, and frequent attacks Cough in a child leads to sleep disturbances. Severe cough can be quite a serious problem, since the cause may be serious.
According to Komarovsky's views, there are several most common reasons for the appearance of children's cough at night:
Children under 5 years of age most often suffer from barking cough. At the age of over 5 years, the cause of cough is a disease of the larynx - laryngitis. In infants, cough is most often caused by lint or small dust particles entering the respiratory tract. As a rule, in such situations there is no cause for concern - all these phenomena are within the normal range, tolerated by children without any problems.
Options and psychosomatics are not excluded. Yes, expressed barking cough may have not only a physiological, but also a “nervous” origin, that is, have a psychogenic nature. This type of cough is also called forced cough: it does not lead to serious problems in the baby's health, causing, rather, more problems from those around you.
If attacks of night cough or cough after sleep in a child begin to recur too often, or they appear with a certain frequency, parents need to deal with the problem. If such a cough during sleep is observed together with shortness of breath, vomiting, weakening of the body or a rash, it’s time to sound the alarm.
Self-medication is strictly unacceptable! It is necessary to urgently go to an ENT doctor. However, this does not prevent you from relieving coughing attacks on your own, which is advisable to do before visiting the doctor.
The sequence of operations to relieve spasms of the bronchi or larynx is very simple and practically does not require any material or training.
Let's consider general principles How to calm a child's night cough:
Inhalations can be, for example, steam. To do this, you need to take a small amount of some dried herb (for example, sage, chamomile or eucalyptus); Vegetable oil (a few drops) is added to the herb, the resulting mixture is poured with boiling water and the child is simply allowed to breathe in the hot vapors of the decoction before bed. You can use soda inhalation: soda is poured into boiling water and the child breathes this steam for some time.
Make sure your baby doesn't get burned; It is not recommended to cover his head with a towel during such inhalation - leave such “extreme” for adults.
The problem of increasing air humidity becomes especially urgent at the beginning of the second half of autumn, when the heating season “opens” in most houses. As a rule, the child’s room is insulated and heated so that all the air in it is dried.
This should not happen, however, if this happens, you can use a humidifier; Moreover, you can use inexpensive products; their operating efficiency practically does not depend on the price, since they are a regular liquid sprinkler. IN as a last resort hang it on the batteries wet towels so that the water evaporating from them humidifies the air.
It is necessary to give the child more liquids to drink during a coughing attack. The best option is to use warm teas or juices before bed. In this case, you can use tea or juice as a “wash down” with some symptom-relieving or anti-allergenic drugs.
It would be a good idea to hold your child's feet before going to bed. warm bath, preferably with herbs. If it is not possible to steam the child’s feet, you can use some special cream or socks with mustard powder.
If a child has a cough without fever, you can use folk remedies in easing his attacks. For example, dilute a little soda in warm milk and let the child drink it in small sips.
Good for coughing at night various decoctions from berries or fruits, given before bedtime. These can be decoctions of lingonberries, viburnum, rose hips.
You can prepare a syrup from black radish juice and sugar, which must be given to the child both immediately before bed (2-3 spoons) and 1-2 times during the day in smaller doses.
You can put a heating pad wrapped in a towel on your child’s chest at night (remembering to remove it when the child falls asleep). Such an improvised compress will weaken the attacks and help the child fall asleep faster.
For aromatherapy, you need to use an aroma lamp, in the bowl of which you must add a sufficient amount of water. You can use lavender, anise, tea tree or sage.
It is quite possible that the above methods will even save you and your kids from the need to visit an ENT doctor.
Doctor Komarovsky, famous pediatrician, recommends using following methods to prevent night cough in children; They will show you how to calm your child’s cough:
It should be remembered that children under one year of age are not recommended to take inhalations; in addition, they are prohibited from giving anthelmintics and most anti-allergenic drugs.
Sometimes it is possible to relieve a cough at night by changing the child's sleeping position. The baby moves little when he sleeps. Changing the position of a coughing child will help clear mucus from the airways more quickly.
You also need to know that the use of antibiotics for a viral cough is unacceptable. This will not lead to an improvement in the condition, but will only put additional stress on children's body.
It is forbidden to give expectorants for a dry cough, and antitussives for a wet cough.
An important role Diet plays a role in preventing night coughs. Special therapy using it is very effective.
The diet of a child suffering from a night cough should include the following:
With this diet, children get essential vitamins and microelements that stimulate the body to independent struggle with cough; they facilitate sputum discharge and expectoration.
According to Dr. Komarovsky, it is not the cough that should be treated, but the disease that is its cause. When the child is properly dressed, if he uses daily required quantity drinking, kept in a sufficiently humidified room, then almost everything you need for symptomatic treatment the cough has already been done.
The main question remains: how to treat a child and are any special medications necessary?
Why can't you use cough suppressants yourself? Because all drugs whose action is directed against cough have nothing to do with its treatment.
Even with an obvious diagnosis, when the parents are firmly convinced that the child has an acute respiratory infection or acute respiratory viral infection, prescribe drug therapy Only a doctor should, after at least a preliminary diagnosis.
Cough is one of the most common symptoms of several groups of childhood diseases. This means that there are not just a lot of funds influencing it in one way or another, but a lot. Each of them not only has a huge amount side effects, it may also have individual application features. In addition, in our time, the effectiveness of the impact of certain medicines is not studied comprehensively.
Yes, it is impossible to study it, because the nature of cough symptoms depends on many factors and conditions in which a particular child lives.
You should not reassure yourself with the thought that a large arsenal of cough remedies will definitely help you and your child. First of all, no one wants to be a “guinea pig” and try all this to determine the “most suitable” product for us. And, secondly, eliminating the cause of cough and providing the child healthy image life, including the right conditions, are a guarantee quick recovery.
The main thing in the treatment of night cough is the correct distribution of roles, when everyone knows what to do. The pediatrician prescribes therapy and monitors it. Parents ensure that the baby is kept in conditions where the effectiveness of the drugs will be maximum. In this case, the problem will be solved most correctly, from the point of view of the child’s health.
