Simple Tips To Care For Your Child's Laryngitis and Hoarseness

When there is not enough air passing through your child's vocal cords, his voice will sound hoarse or husky or may disappear altogether. Hoarseness is not a disease. It is a signal that his vocal cords are not working normally.

Hoarseness can be caused by overuse of the vocal cords. Cheering at a sporting event, shouting, singing, speaking or whispering for long periods can all cause temporary hoarseness or loss of voice. Constantly clearing the throat can also cause hoarseness. A cold, sore throat or other upper respiratory infection can rob your child of his voice if the infection spreads to his voice box. This is called laryngitis.

Here are some simple tips for caring a child's Laryngitis and Hoarseness:

• Make your child rest his vocal cords. Instruct him to avoid talking and whispering as much as possible. (Whispering strains vocal cords as much as talking does.) Have him use a pencil and paper and hand gestures to communicate

• Give him plenty of fluids. Water is best to keep vocal cords hydrated

• Protect him from smoke and air pollution. Both can dry out and irritate vocal cords.

• If you live in an area with low humidity, humidify your home.

• If you have to go out in extremely cold weather, have him wear a scarf or mask over his mouth

• If he is old enough, he can suck on cough lozenges if his throat feels scratchy

• Discourage him from constantly clearing his throat.

Newborn Babies might benefit from having music played to them

This ones interesting, I found this article using our library online journals. This may help those incoming pregnant mommies.

Playing music to neonates may have physiological and behavioural benefits and might reduce pain and improve feeding, according to the preliminary findings of researchers in Canada who investigated the effects of music played to term or premature infants.

Six studies evaluated music for painful procedures. A high quality pilot study involving 23 infants undergoing circumcision showed benefits for music for the outcomes of heart rate, oxygen saturation and pain, while two low quality studies showed no difference. Three low quality studies involving infants undergoing heel prick showed some evidence that music might be beneficial.

One study involving 32 poorly feeding infants evaluated die use of non-nutritive sucking via a pacifier-activated lullaby and found a significant increase in oral feeding rates. In a study of 22 infants with chronic lung disease, there were no significant differences in physiological outcomes between those exposed to music and controls.

(Well my 9 month old girl likes music, she likes to listen to it will drinking her milk in the bottle. Although this article is for newborn.)