It may save you a rush to the doctor or the hospital.

If parents call me about a sick child, one of the first questions is, if they counted their child’s breathing during sleep. 

If you skip many articles I send to you, or read them superficially, then this one you should read very carefully.

It may save you a rush to the doctor or the hospital

Fast breathing in the diagnosis of pneumonia 

[or possibly another severe disease]

MY SCHEME: COUNT A FULL MINUTE, PREFERABLY DURING SLEEP.

IN AND OUT = ONE BREATHING [putting the back of your hand in front of the child’s nose is the easiest way to count: every time you feel warm air against your hand [this means breathing out], you count as ONE breathing]

MAXIMUM [BREATHING PER MINUTE] SHOULD BE:

BELOW 2 MONTHS: MAXIMUM 60

2 MONTHS – 1 YEAR: MAXIMUM 50

1-3 YEARS: MAXIMUM 40

3-5 YEARS: MAXIMUM 30

PLEASE PRINT THIS OUT AND STICK IT ONE YOUR MEDICINE BOX OR FRIDGE.

If you have a friend with children without a computer, then you can do them big chesed by printing this out for them [or translating it in Hebrew]

Below is an article for the more interested readers:

In this hospital-based prospective study, 222 children presenting with cough and breathlessness were screened for lower respiratory infection. All clinically-detected cases of LRI and every fifth case of URI were investigated. Pneumonia was defined as the presence of abnormal shadows on chest roentgenograms, against which the clinical symptoms and signs were assessed for their utility in diagnosing pneumonia.

Fast breathing was found to be the most useful sign of predicting pneumonia in all age groups. Cut-off points at 50 breaths/min for infants, including neonates, 40 breaths/min for children aged 12-35 months, and 30 breaths/min for children aged 36-60 months indicated the presence of pneumonia. Crepitations on auscultation of the chest were found to have a good correlation with the presence of radiological pneumonia. Other signs like chest indrawing and cyanosis were found to be highly specific signs in detecting pneumonia but had low sensitivity.

Journal of Tropical Pediatrics WWW servicePublished by Oxford University Press Copyright ©Oxford

D. Gupta, S. Mishra and P. Chaturvedi Department of Paediatrics, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences Sevagram, Wardha-442 102 (MS), India and Corresponding author

ABSTRACT

Pseudo-croup = “stridor”

Today I would like to give you-as parents-also

a handy tip for children with stridor. Most stridors are scarier [mafchid] than really dangerous.

There are, however, situations in which stridor can become a real emergency.

It is hard to describe to you in all detail what stridor [pseudo-croup] is, but for practical reasons, one can explain this.

A young child wakes up [mainly in the middle of the night] with shortness of breath. One hears a heavy wheeze[tsiftsuf] while the child is inhaling[noshem=machnis awir], together with a hoarse [tsarud], barking cough and often the child improves when he is brought to the window/balcony/in the fresh air. A good thing to have at home, if a child suffers now and then from stridor is the following homoeopathic mixture:

Hepar sulph / aconit / spongia , all of them D30 ,together in a bottle [30 cc is enough]

Give frequently, during an attack, even every 5 to 10 minutes, a few drops on the tongue.

often after a few doses, the attack abates[mafsik]

For certainty, one can give them a few drops a few days before sleep.

These can be repeated as often as necessary in case of further attacks.

 I have seen [heard from parents]that this combination worked virtually always.

It is highly recommended that emergency rooms would adopt this practice as well.

In any yeshuv/kibbutz/community: keep a bottle with these drops at hand.

This homoeopathic combination is not my own discovery; one will find it in most homoeopathic books.

I have quite a bit of experience with it.

Do realize that stridor may be a symptom of various conditions/diseases.

[ a child may have swallowed a foreign object [guf zar] ]etc

If one is in doubt, take the child to a doctor without waiting.

Any case of cyanosis [kichalon],

drooling[harbe rok me-ha-pe],

extreme restlessness,

[excessive]drowsiness

should be a sign to have the child examined straight away.

In any case, however -if one has these drops available- give frequently a few drops [2 drops are enough]even if the child is in the hospital.