Both Parents Have Flu How to Take Care of Baby

By: Flor M. Muñoz, Medico, MSc, FAAP

Flu is the brusque term for influenza. It is an illness acquired past a respiratory virus. The flu tin can spread rapidly through communities, as the virus is passed person to person.

When someone with the flu coughs or sneezes, the influenza virus gets into the air, and people nearby, including children, can inhale it through the nose or rima oris.

The virus also tin exist spread when kids touch a contaminated hard surface, such equally a door handle, and and so put their hands or fingers in their nose or mouth, or rub their eyes.

When is flu season?

The flu flavor usually starts in the fall and ends in the spring. Ideally, children should get an annual flu shot before the end of Oct. But if your child did not get vaccinated withal, they nevertheless should.

When at that place is an outbreak or epidemic, usually during the winter months, the illness tends to exist nigh frequent in preschool or school-aged children. Flu viruses are known to spread quickly among college students and teens, too.

In the first few days of illness, the virus is easily transmitted to other children, parents and caregivers.

Information technology is of import for anyone over vi months of age to become the influenza vaccine each year. Adults and children should too get COVID-nineteen vaccines and a COVID booster as soon as they are eligible. The COVID vaccine and influenza vaccine tin safely exist given at the same fourth dimension or at any time one after the other.

Flu symptoms include:

• A sudden fever (usually in a higher place 100.four°F or 38°C)

• Chills
  

• Headache, trunk aches, and being a lot more than tired than usual

• Sore throat
  

• Dry, hacking cough

• Stuffy, runny nose

• Some children may throw upwardly (vomit) and have loose stools (diarrhea).

After the kickoff few days of these symptoms, a sore throat, stuffy nose, and standing coughing become near evident. The flu tin last a week or even longer. A child with a common cold usually has but a low-grade fever, a runny nose, and only a small-scale amount of coughing. Children with the flu—or adults, for that matter—commonly feel much sicker, achier, and more miserable.

Kids with chronic wellness conditions at greater risk

Children who appear to have the greatest chance of complications from the flu are those with an underlying chronic medical status, such every bit lung, middle, or kidney disease, an immune organization problem, malignancy, diabetes mellitus, some blood diseases, or conditions of the muscular or central nervous arrangement.

As these children may have more astringent illness or complications, information technology'due south important for them to exist vaccinated and, when possible, avoid other children with the flu or flu-like symptoms. Their pediatrician may suggest additional precautions that should exist taken.

If your kid has whatever of these chronic health conditions and flu-like symptoms along with any difficulty animate, seek medical attention right away. There can be serious complications, fifty-fifty death, from the flu, but thank you to the flu vaccine these are less common.

Flu treatment

Children may benefit from extra rest and drinking lots of fluids when they go the influenza.

If your child is uncomfortable because of a fever, acetaminophen or ibuprofen in doses recommended by your pediatrician for his historic period and weight volition assist him feel better. Ibuprofen is canonical for use in children six months of age and older; nevertheless, it should never be given to children who are dehydrated or who are airsickness continuously.

It is extremely important never to give aspirin to a kid who has the flu or is suspected of having the flu. Aspirin during bouts of flu is associated with an increased risk of developing Reye syndrome.

Antiviral medications: available by prescription to treat an influenza infection

Your pediatrician can assistance make up one's mind whether or not to treat the influenza with an antiviral medicine. Antiviral medications piece of work best if started within the beginning ane to two days of showing signs of the flu. Still, in some children with increased risk for flu complications, treatment could be started later.

Call your pediatrician inside 24 hours of the first flu symptom to inquire most antiviral medications if your child:

• Has an underlying health problem like asthma or other chronic lung disease, a heart condition, diabetes, sickle jail cell disease, a weakened allowed organization, a neuromuscular status such as cerebral palsy, or other medical weather condition.
  

• Is younger than 5 years old, especially if less than ii years old.
  

• Has symptoms that are non improving.
  

• Is in contact with others who are at adventure for complications of the influenza.
  

Influenza recovery and complications

Healthy people, especially children, get over the flu in about a week, without any lingering issues. Talk with your kid's dr. if you doubtable a complication like ear pain, force per unit area in your kid's face and caput, or a cough and fever that will non go away.

When flu becomes an emergency

If your child has the flu and develops whatsoever of these symptoms, contact your pediatrician or seek immediate medical care.

• Trouble breathing or unusually rapid breathing

• Blue lips or face
  

• Ribs looking similar they pull in with each breath

• Chest pain

• Muscle hurting and then severe that your child refuses to walk

• Aridity (no peeing for 8 hours, dry mouth, and no tears when crying)

• While awake, your child is not alert or interacting with you

• Seizures

• Fever in a higher place 104°F

• In children less than 12 weeks, any fever

• Fever or coughing that seem to amend just so render or worsen

• Worsening chronic medical weather condition, such as asthma

Influenza prevention

Everyone needs the flu vaccine each year to update their protection. It is the best fashion to prevent getting the flu. Safe and effective vaccines are made each year.

The flu vaccine is peculiarly important for:

• Children, including infants built-in preterm, who are 6 months to v years of age,

• Children of whatever age with chronic medical conditions that increase the risk of complications from the flu

• Children of American Indian/Alaska Native heritage

• All contacts and care providers of children with loftier take chances atmospheric condition and children under five years onetime
  

• All women who are significant, are considering pregnancy, have recently delivered, or are breastfeeding during the flu flavor. This is to protects both mother and baby, which is important since newborns and infants under half-dozen months old are not able to receive their own vaccination.
• All wellness care workers
  

The flu virus spreads hands through the air with coughing and sneezing, and through touching things like doorknobs or toys and then touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.

Click here for some tips that will aid protect your family from getting ill.

Flu vaccine

Both the inactivated (killed) vaccine, also called the "flu shot," given by injection in the muscle, and the live-adulterate nasal spray vaccine, can be used for influenza vaccination this season. At that place is no preference for a product or formulation. Whatever of these vaccines should exist given as bachelor in your area.

Side effects from the flu vaccine

The flu vaccine has few side effects, the most common being fever and redness, soreness or swelling at the injection site for the flu shot, or runny nose, congestion and sore throat for the nasal spray vaccine.

Children with egg allergies can receive the flu vaccine. Children with a previous allergic reaction afterward a dose of flu vaccine should exist seen past an allergist. The allergist can aid parents decide if their kid should receive an annual influenza vaccination.

More information

• Ask the Pediatrician: Practice higher students and teens need a flu shot?
  
• Enquire the Pediatrician: Which flu vaccine should my children get this yr?
  
• Enquire the Pediatrician: Can my child get a COVID-nineteen vaccine and flu vaccine at the same visit?
  
• How Is the Flu Unlike From COVID-19?
  
• Flu: A Guide for Parents of Children or Adolescents With Chronic Health Conditions
  
• Fix Wrigley Prepares for Flu Season (CDC)

Most Dr. Muñoz

Flor Muñoz, MD, MSc, FAAP, is associate professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at Texas Children's Infirmary and Baylor Higher of Medicine. She is an investigator in various projects focusing on vaccines and the epidemi ology of respiratory infections, including those supported past the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Affliction Control and Prevention (CDC). She has published extensively on topics related to vaccines and influenza. Dr Muñoz is a fellow member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Commission on Infectious Diseases (AAP COID – 2015-2021) and of the American College of Gynecologists (ACOG) Immunization Skillful Group. She too serves on the Flu Work Group of the CDC Informational Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

The data contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on private facts and circumstances.

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Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/chest-lungs/Pages/The-Flu.aspx

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