With the cold come coughs, mucus, bronchitis, otitis, conjunctivitis, ... itis, and visits to the pediatrician to tell you how to cure him of it and, if it can be, to tell us what can we do to increase defenses and prevent them from spending the winter by falling back on viruses and bacteria.
So that you do not have to wait for that moment, and so that you do not go to the pharmacy in search of I do not know what magic remedy that increases your defenses, without actually doing it (surely), we will explain how to improve the defenses of babies and children.
Newborn babies already have defenses
If you have a baby of a few weeks there is not much you can do beyond breastfeeding (which is not little), because it already has many defenses. They are the ones you have because you received from the mother during pregnancy and they make, despite how small they are, they get quite sick. Have you ever noticed that there are newborns who survive an epidemic at home? All colds and the baby so happy ... Well, it is not pure mathematics, sometimes they do get sick, but thanks to maternal defenses they are quite protected. The problem is that over time these defenses disappear, the baby is older, begins to eat, begins to put his hand (and more things) to his mouth, to come into contact with more germs and things start to complicate
That is when they are more at risk of catching an infection, a cold, diarrhea, bronchiolitis, etc., and that is when you begin to realize that your home is looking more and more like that of a retiree: you had a tiny drawer for four medicines that ended up expiring and suddenly you realize that the drawer has become small and you have to make room for the thermometer, the fever syrup until 6 months, that of the fever from 6 months, that of the cough, inhaler, inhaler chamber, mask for inhaler chamber, cortisone ointment for atopic skin, cortisone for laryngitis, other cough syrup because the first seems to do nothing, the Mucus syrup, the antibiotic that has been sent to you, the probiotic so that the antibiotic does not give you diarrhea, oral serum for diarrhea, etc., in a not to buy things, that you feel you should start at the pharmacy offer you discounts for both what are you going
And this is so (or worse) until time, months and years go by, and the immune system works much better, which is something that happens between 2 and 6 years, being usual to be towards 5-7 years when everyone stops taking so many diseases. That is, if you have ever wondered when he will stop catching all the viruses that surround him, that moment will be about that age, surely.
So while you wait, if it gives you despair, it may happen that you end up asking the pharmacist about a syrup that increases defenses or asks the pediatrician. And calm, nothing happens, we have all done it. I also ended up buying some syrups that they carried, I don't know what milks (royal jelly, echinacea, propolis, vitamins and strawberry flavored and all), and nothing, that fell again.
What does not help improve children's defenses
So to know how to help them improve their defenses a bit, we explain what is going well and what is not going well, even though there are people who think so. What we know does not help is:
- Give vitamins without the child needing them: An excess of vitamins does not increase defenses and can be counterproductive. Children do not usually need them because they receive them from the food they eat each day.
- Make orange juices for vitamin C: It will not do badly, but vitamin C does not have the effect that we all thought it had, since it neither prevents nor cures colds.
- Give syrups with royal jelly, propolis, ...: Royal jelly has not yet shown that it is capable of helping anything, neither honey nor the propolis. Echinacea is the only plant that does seem to prevent colds a bit, but in children it has been seen that the risk of skin rashes and gastrointestinal discomfort increases and in the end you don't know if the remedy or the disease is better.
- Take the child to daycare to get immunized before: If it goes because it has to go, then there is no other, but taking it to take diseases before and get immunized is not recommended because it does not work that way, what will happen is that you start to suffer from illnesses before.
- Give homeopathy: Although they sell homeopathic preparations to increase defenses, they do nothing, because homeopathy has not shown to date, in any study, to be able to do anything beyond the known placebo effect, neither to prevent nor to cure.
What helps children improve defenses?
- To eat a balanced diet: eating a variety, with foods rich in healthy fats (fish), eating fruit, vegetables and legumes and with whole carbohydrates, helps to have an optimal immunity status. This does not mean that you will have more and more defenses to the point of not getting sick, but, if you do not have a balanced diet, the immune system will work worse and catch more diseases.
- Drink breast milk: It is the only food with which babies receive immune cells directly. As these are also adapted to the direct environment of the baby or child, it is of incalculable value (if the household colds, including the mother, will make defenses for that particular virus, which will pass the child through the milk).
- Give them probiotics: This goes with an asterisk. Probiotics seem effective in preventing and treating various pathologies. In fact, they have even been effective for women in cases of mastitis, and for diarrhea, and to prevent respiratory symptoms. What happens is that there are many types of probiotics and each strain has different characteristics and an action that is not always equivalent, so buying probiotics to prevent disease is a bit of a lottery. Maybe it works, maybe not.
- A little dirt and have a dog: For a long time it was thought that the best way for a child to be healthy was to avoid germs and dirt. It has been seen that no, that this is not good because then the immune system has nothing to fight against and there is a risk of producing allergies and autoimmune diseases (the defenses fight against cells of the body itself). So a little dirt and having a dog are two factors that help the immune system work well (but before eating it wash your hands, yes).
- That parents do not smoke: or if they do, especially, that they smoke outside the house and then change their clothes, so that the child "smokes" passively as little as possible.
- To do sports: and not necessarily a regulated sport, but run, play, exercise, enjoy. Do what children do and not what sedentary people do, who abuse the chair.
- Be happy: that he has free time to play, that he is calm, that he has no worries or feels insecure, because children who live pending of many things, or stressed, tend to get sicker.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | How to improve the child's defenses, Before the cold, some tips to improve their defenses, Who said that taking the child out of the cold their defenses would increase?
