How To Fight a Cold Without Medicine

When I was pregnant, I had several colds and it’s misery since you can’t take medicine to stop that runny nose. You stay awake all night trying to breathe, while using an entire box of tissues. And even if you aren’t pregnant, you may not always want to use medicine. And, what about the kids? New pediatric guidelines don’t allow for children under 6 to take certain medicines – like cough medicine. I wanted to find out how to fight a cold without medicine.

Kids and Medicine

What are parents supposed to do to help them? There are several things we can do to help our little ones alleviate the symptoms of the common cold.

Here are some tips:

• Place a cold mist vaporizer/humidifier in your child’s room.
• Use saline drops with a nasal suctioning bulb for infants.
• Sit with your child in a hot steamed bathroom for about 10-15 minutes at a time.
• Use hard candies (for children over age 4 years) or warm chicken broth to soothe a sore throat.
• Give your child plenty of liquids to increase hydration and help thin mucus.
• To ease congestion, keep the child’s head elevated when resting.

(sources: Parenting.org and WebMD)

We’ve been trying some of these tips and they do help. Sometimes we resort to medicine if we just can’t take it, but these remedies are good to try.

Related:

• Kids Cold Medicines: Guideines (WebMD)

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