Wash your hands often with soap and water and once again
before handling the baby. If your child is under two years of age and has a
cold, put him to bed and make sure he is kept warm in every part of his body.
With older children, it is not necessary to confine them to bed unless they are
fever- ish. See to it that the room is free of drafts.
You can get ventilation
by opening a window in another room. For a sick child with fever, it's
important to make certain he gets adequate amounts of fluid. Encourage him to
drink small quantities fre- quently. Because fever makes a child perspire, he
loses body fluids and may become "dried out," lowering resistance to
germs still more. To prevent this, give a sufficient volume of fluids so that
the child urinates in normal amounts.
An adequate urine output will be
indicated by a light- yellow color instead of a dark-brownish color, which
usually signifies insufficient fluid. In addition to milk and water, try fruit
juices and car- bonated drinks; grapefruit 'and melons are good sources of
extra fluid. If you think you should give your child nose drops, ask your doctor
first. Nose drops and antihistamine pills have no curative effect whatever.
They simply ease symptoms. But always let your doctor decide whether any
medicine should be used and what kind it should be.
There are two simple
measures you can use to relieve a mucus-plugged nose in an infant. First,
loosen the mucus by putting in the nostrils a few drops of sterile saline
solution. You can make the solution by adding a teaspoonful of salt to a pint
of boiling water and then cooling to body temperature. Next, after a few
minutes, suck out the mucus with a rubber-tipped bulb. Second, try increasing
the humidity of the air the infant breathes.
An electric humidifier is a
worthwhile investment, help- ful for all the family's colds. A fair substitute
is to keep one or more pans of hot water on a radiator. It's very important to
realize that a cold paves the way for other germs called "secondary
invaders." These are germs like the pneumococcus and especially the
streptococcus.
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