Thanks to the cold and the high viral circulation, in these days at the end of 2022 “we see many accesses of children to the emergency room. The characteristic of this flu is a high fever, usually higher than 38 degrees, with peaks of even 39-40 , and this scares the parents a lot. Then this annoying and irritating cough arises, which can last not 3-4 days but even 2 or more weeks. So even the fact that the cough does not go away is an extra reason for alertness for the parents, who tend to go to the pediatrician again.And for a single flu symptomatology there is no longer just one access, but repeated accesses to medical care, whether in the clinic or in the emergency room.Then there is always the bugbear that whether it is Covid, for some symptoms that are somewhat overlapping even if by now they differ quite well”. Elena Bozzola, secretary and national councilor of the Italian Society of Pediatrics (Sip), described the flu symptoms to Adnkronos Salute in recent weeks.
“The ‘fever phobia’ weighs heavily, and pushes the parent to run to the emergency room when the thermometer rises a lot”, says the specialist. But there are cases in which it is important to do so and cases in which “the ideal would be to contact your pediatrician. Because inevitably, in these intense days in which there are so many children with symptoms, long queues form in the emergency room”. When to be alarmed? “Under 3 months of life – explains the infectious disease pediatrician – when a fever appears, you shouldn’t wait to take your little one to the hospital”. There are some ‘red lights’ to keep an eye on: “When the child has breathing difficulties – explains the expert – you can see the chest moving like an accordion and at the level of the jugular, we see that the dimple at the base of the neck it raises and lowers, and there is a breathing of the nasal fins, that is, the two nostrils also move, because it is as if the baby could not breathe and uses all that accessory musculature to succeed”.
This is also accompanied “by tachycardia, i.e. the heart beats faster because it tries to pump as much oxygen as possible and you observe increasingly faster breathing, also accompanied by loss of appetite”, continues Bozzola. Again: “The younger the child, the more he needs to feed on a regular basis. If he doesn’t do it, it is one of the alarm bells, together with the others listed, which must push him to take the child to a visit to the emergency room. Another element it is the condition of low reactivity, hypotonia, difficulty in waking up, numbness.All mothers know that with a fever of 40 you can’t jump on the bed, but you can see if the baby is reactive, if he sits up or something else and understand if there is ‘something is wrong. When you see these conditions, it’s best not to waste time.”
For other situations, however, “the ideal is to contact your pediatrician – recommends the specialist – also because in recent days there is the risk that the child will be waiting for a long time in the emergency room and also that he could be infected with other virus”. One piece of advice that the expert gives is to “intensify adherence to vaccinations, because it is not true that vaccinating against the flu is useless, it is a form of prevention”. On the prevention front, there are also small tricks that could be useful for leaving seasonal viruses outside the front door: “Try to avoid visits from relatives and friends with a cough, sore throat or cold, because for them they can be mild symptoms , but not for a newborn”.
“And then always disinfect the surfaces well – continues Bozzola – We remind you that the virus can also remain on door handles or toys. If there is a child who goes to kindergarten, do not let him play with the same games that the little brother Sometimes it is the older children who go to school or kindergarten who bring home what appears to be a common cold, but is actually a respiratory syncytial virus which thus manifests itself in the older ones and becomes a weapon deadly towards the little ones”. Another precaution: “Do not take babies to shopping malls or to older children’s birthday parties, in the midst of many people. It is not enough to say: I keep it separate. Because there is still a scattering of droplets all around. And finally: avoid exposure to secondhand smoke, even in the tertiary sector, i.e. those who smoked half an hour earlier and take the baby in their arms with smoke residue on. These are small tricks that can, however, help pass the season” of respiratory viruses.
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