A Romanian doctor comments on one of the most common “crisis” situations that parents face: children’s colds. More precisely, Dr. Patricia Badea analyzes the situation in which the child has nasal secretions and which causes a misplaced reaction of the parents in most cases.
Child with a cold, blowing his nose PHOTO: Shuterstock
The family doctor criticizes the attitude of most parents regarding children’s colds. “It’s a touchstone of modern parenting”says, ironically, Patricia Badea.
“This touchstone of modern parenting! There are no parents more stressed by snot than Romanians! Starting with the first days of life (when it wasn’t sucked well at birth = another mess) when the nose gets full of milk and secretions and starts to snort and up to 10 years old when you actually don’t care if his sleeves are full of snot, the parents would he does anything, he would try any solution (that’s why the market is saturated with all the messes, such as volatile oils that generate allergies and bronchospasm), any spray, any drops, only, only the child’s nose becomes permeable to air!”, explained Dr. Patricia Badea, on Facebook.
Furthermore, the doctor issues a warning. “Remember well and also tell others: the snot from a virus lasts three weeks, during which time the child has time to take another one and starts it all over again with new ones!!”Patricia Badea sent.
According to her, there are four types of “snot”:
“1. Soggy, running like a faucet – it’s the early days of the virus, they’re full of viruses, and they’re highly contagious.
2. Whitish and gelatinous – they are the secretions that begin to be charged by the own defense cells that begin to swallow the viruses, they appear on the 3-7th day of virosis.
3. Green mucus – the fear of nurses, educators and implicitly mothers are nothing but residual secretions, all the cells that fought the viruses, that covered the inflamed mucous membranes, etc. THEY ARE NOT CONTAGIOUS AND DO NOT MEAN PUS IN THE NOSE! It does not require an antibiotic, but it does require washing and cleaning frequency a nose, to be eliminated. If they remain blocked through the nose, being very viscous, in some children, they can cause otitis and in adults sinusitis (pain, fever!). They last 10-14 days until they are completely eliminated, during which time the child can go to the community provided that someone blows his/her nose!
4. Phosphorescent yellow mucus – it is the secretions superinfected by staphylococcus that require topical treatment (Not in the mouth!) with the antibiotic that the doctor recommends!! (Not the pharmacist, nanny, educator!).”
At the end of the message, Patricia Badea offers a piece of advice to parents, nannies and educators.
“With all due respect to all professions, those who take care of children must know everything I wrote above! And you, parents, when you hear other children coughing in kindergarten and the cough is productive, thick… stay calm, that child is not contagious! If instead you see one with watery snot running out of his mouth…be sure you’ve been burned”stated doctor Patricia Badea.
The post was also picked up by Dr. Mihai Craiu, primary pediatrician at the “Alessandrescu-Rusescu” Mother and Child Health Institute in Bucharest, on the page of the Virtual Children’s Hospital.
