How to get rid of a
Baby Cold Fast
Baby's First Cold - Boys Town Pediatrics
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Your baby's first cold can be somewhat scary, especially, if you're a first-time parent.
When babies are first born they have a very weak immune system. So they're going to pick
up many viruses, especially if they go to daycare. So the basic virus will last from
seven to 10 days. That's just the normal life span of a virus. So you can expect the cold
to go for at least 10 days, sometimes two weeks or longer.
Now usually with a virus, the basic symptoms you can expect with the common cold are runny nose, nasal congestion,
coughing, they're fussy at night, they're usually a little more clingy and a lot of
time they don't eat as well. Saline and suctioning and a cool-mist humidifier. Those are the
mainstays of treatment, especially for little babies. Babies have such little nasal passages,
that if they have a little congestion, they may have a hard time eating and sleeping.
So we use saline and suction to make them more comfortable, sleep better and eat better.
The basic virus lasts about seven to 10 days but if in the middle of the seven to 10 day
period, you see all of a sudden, worsening symptoms, we have signs of an ear infection,
signs of pneumonia, then we would treat with an antibiotic. In general, because those colds
and the runny noses are caused by a virus, the antibiotic will not help the cold virus.
If you see, ok they had a fever day one or two, it was gone for a few days but the fever
comes back, they're all of a sudden much more fussy, they're pulling on their ears, they're
screaming a night, we kind of look for those. If something suddenly changes we say call
right away.
