The reason you need to stay calm is that you want your child to stay calm. The symptoms of croup get worse when your child gets agitated. As he's gasping for more breath, he breathes faster. If you can calm him, he'll breathe slower and more air can get in and out.
If your child is having breathing difficulties, take him into the bathroom and turn on a hot shower to get the room really steamy. The child will be able to breathe more easily in the steam. It may decrease the inflammation so the swelling in the throat goes down.
One of the curious things about croup is what happens when panicky parents bundle their child into the car for the drive to the hospital, and suddenly, the problem stops. Cold air just like steamy air is beneficial for your child. So you may be able to help your child just by opening the window or by taking him into a air-conditioning room.
Turn your cool-mist vaporizer up full blast. You can either let the vaporizer douse the entire room or direct it toward the child. You need to get a lot of moisture into the air before this will be effective. Just be sure that the vaporizer has a filter that's designed to filter out impurities, because that can aggravate breathing difficulties in an allergic child.
You can give the child frequent, small sips of an over-the-counter electrolyte replacement fluid such as Pedialyt or even Gatorade. But any clear liquid-like broth or apple juice-will help restore fluids to the child's body.
Nice remedies
Nice list to help try and soothe a croup cough.
There's nothing like the old fashioned hot air vaporizer for croup. I have one going in my bathroom right now, creating moist air for a litter of puppies born three days ago! H5!
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