There is one thing you can almost guarantee with children, they will catch a cold. If you have school age children you will know what I mean. Having a new born in the home can be an anxious time for parents when there are coughs, colds and flu's in the home. At some stage your new born is going to catch that virus. It is not necessarily a bad thing - babies do need to develop their own immune systems and it often starts with the common cold. The tricky part is knowing how to treat colds in a new born.

Newborns and cough mixtures are deadly

Treating a cold in a new born is different to treating a cold in an older child. There is very little in the way of medicine that can be administered. However, just remember, when you are taking a cough medicine yourself, or administering it to a child, you are really only treating the symptoms - you are not treating the cold itself. For newborn babies it is no different - you are treating the symptoms and trying to make things as comfortable as possible. Cough mixtures wont work and could prove to be deadly.

Temperature Control

The first and most important step in treating a newborn babies cold is to keep a constant eye on their temperature. If the temperature raises above 100.4 then call your doctor or take the baby to hospital. An accurate thermometer is required for this and a rectal temperature is the most accurate.

If you are looking for wonderful pearls of wisdom, I am sorry to say there are none. Don't use any cough medicine without your doctors approval. Most cough medicines have the potential to be fatal for young babies.

Humidity

Keeping the air moist with a humidifier will help. Place the humidifier in the babies sleeping room. Avoid any chemicals or essential oils unless your doctor gives his approval. It is steam keeping the air moist that is helping the baby. Most chemicals or essential olds are really only making the air smell nice.

Sleep

Whilst baby is asleep, raise their head in the crib. A pillow or folded towel under the top of the mattress should do the trick. This will help to drain any muck and at the same time stop baby from choking on it all.

The Blocked Nose

For baby's nose, a few saline drops can help to flush out any muck. You can also use an aspirator to suck out the much - this can help to alleviate breathing difficulties in baby. A little vaseline on baby's nose will help to prevent the skin drying out and being rubbed raw when you wipe their nose.

Food

As with older children and adults, plenty of fluids should be offered. For bottle fed babies, a little less offered more often can help. If they are over three months then you can consider boiled cooled water. If you are breast feeding, keep your own fluids up and keep offering the breast - again, smaller more frequent meals can be of more benefit.

You cannot stop them - you can try to reduce them, but eventually every baby will suffer from a cough or cold. Treat them early and often and you may find they sail through the problem.

See also:

Handling A Newborn Babies First Cough and Cold
Coughs Colds And A Newborn's Runny Nose