Children’s hoarseness: symptoms, home care, precautions and treatment


        CHILDREN’S HOARSENESS: SYMPTOMS, HOME CARE, PRECAUTIONS AND TREATMENT

Signs and symptoms
Hoarseness may lead your child to speak or cry in a lower pitch than usual, or to be unable to speak above a whisper. Check whether the child has other symptoms - fever, cough, difficulty with breathing, sore throat, or an obstruction of the nose - which might be responsible for the voice change. If not, and if the child has been yelling or screaming a lot, it's probably a simple case of hoarseness.

Home care
A hoarse child should rest his or her voice, inhale steam, and drink warm liquids. If the hoarseness is due to an allergy and your child has been prescribed antihistamines for an allergic condition, the medication should relieve the hoarseness. Remember that hoarseness in a baby's cry, if it's happening because the larynx is still soft, is not a cause for concern and should disappear by the time the child is a year old.

Precautions
• Hoarseness in children is not usually due to any potentially dangerous cause. If no other signs of illness are present, therefore, the home care recommended above should take care of the problem.
• If the hoarseness gets more severe or persists for longer than a few days consult your doctor.

Medical treatment
A doctor using a tongue blade and flashlight can see no further than the epiglottis (a "lid" that covers the voice box above the vocal cords) and cannot examine the vocal cords. However, a doctor who is concerned about the child's hoarseness may refer you to an ear, nose, and throat specialist who has the equipment necessary to perform a more complete examination. It's rarely necessary to surgically remove the "screamer's nodes."

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GENERAL HEALTH


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