Dr. Komarovsky about the means of ORVI for children

Today, thanks to the Internet, which is in every home, many parents have learned to treat their child’s common illnesses on their own. Often this applies to colds in the cold season.

Once again, mothers and fathers do not seek to call a doctor from a clinic or to lead a child to be tested. They believe that effective and advertised on the Internet and on television antiviral drugs for children is the very universal pill that will quickly alleviate the condition of the crumbs.

What mistakes are trying to keep Dr. Komarovsky moms and dads? How and when, according to the doctor, should antiviral agents be given to babies?

Dr. Yevgeny Komarovsky, a native of the Kharkiv region, became famous for a series of books and publications for parents. He became one of the first physicians who explain mothers and fathers in an accessible and understandable form, what are the causes of childhood diseases and how to approach the treatment correctly. Komarovsky himself is known in the professional environment as an adherent of a not quite standard basic school of medicine, his opinion sometimes goes against the official position of the Ministry of Health. He brought up two sons, now has a grandson and granddaughter. Teaches the program “School of Doctor Komarovsky” on television and the rubric on “Russian Radio”.

Evgeniy Olegovich has an ambiguous attitude towards antiviral drugs, however, today his position is shared by most modern pediatricians. The most important thing, according to Komarovsky, is that the drugs for viruses are practically ineffective. The clinical effect is not proven in the overwhelming majority of well-known drugs, but because parents who seek to feed their child with such medicines at the first sneeze, first of all, they make their condition easier for themselves.

They do it, rather, for their own comfort, they say, the tablet is given, the child is helped. In fact, it is a “disservice”. After all, antiviral drugs that perform the function of immunostimulants and immunomodulators, make the baby’s “lazy” own immune system, which is formed in the first few years of life. That is why parents who, for no reason to give their children medicines for viruses, babies get sick more often and stronger than others.

But actually Doctor Komarovsky himself, who in the transmission cycle will tell us all about children's antiviral drugs.

In his arguments, Komarovsky refers to the world pediatric practice, in which it is not considered a deviation from the norm if the child has a cold up to 12 times a year. In Russia and the former Soviet republics, other criteria are considered to be weak and painful for a baby who has a cold five or six times a year. He is taken under enhanced surveillance, put on a dispensary account, take care of and try to find more and more new drugs for him.

This, of course, on the hand of pharmacists and companies that produce medicines.In the seasons of increased incidence, they earn billions in fees, not really thinking about what will happen to children who are forced at the insistence of parents (and some doctors of the old formation) to burst tablets and syrups. Thus, parents and doctors themselves raise sick and weak children, from which unhealthy adults later grow. What to do?

One of the parents’s favorite remedies is homeopathic treatment. There is no harm from them, in any case, the instructions for the use of drugs do not indicate any side effects and do not contain information about overdose. But effective, according to Komarovsky, they can not be called. Studies of the effectiveness of such drugs is not carried out, because homeopathic remedies contain too small particles of active substances. It is not possible to identify their action clinically in the laboratory.

Therefore apply homeopathy when treating a child or not to apply - it is up to the parents themselves to decide. On this occasion, Komarovsky says that if mothers and children need a “magic pill”, then it is better to be a homeopathic pill. Its action is based more on the placebo effect, no matter how much pharmacists and pharmacists in pharmacies try to convince their parents of this.

To recognize what kind of infection in a child, you can and independently, although it is not so easy, says Komarovsky. If the baby’s nose with cold symptoms is dry, not pledged, but throat it’s painful and the fever has risen, most likely, the doctor says, this is a bacterial disease (angina etc.). If the snot, as they say, pour, the eyes are watering, the temperature rises rapidly, then it is possible to suspect a viral infection.

Should I call a doctor? Required. Do I Take Antivirals? Komarovsky says that only in extreme cases and only on the recommendation of a pediatrician. This is especially true of newborns from a year to three, for them it is not so much a terrible viral infection, as the intoxication associated with it.

To treat a child with flu and ORVI, a famous doctor advises as follows:

• Leave the child at home at any cost. You should not take him to the kindergarten or take him across the city by transport to his grandmother, even if initially it seems that it is impossible to take time off from work and leave the child with no one. All this increases the risk of further spread of viral infection. Therefore, it is better to find time for your own child. Optimally, if he is in the first hours at the first symptoms of ARVI or flu, the parents will be able to provide bed rest.
• You need to put the baby warm, but do not re-entangle it so that the crumb does not sweat.
• In the room, be sure to create the "right" conditions so that the child’s immunity copes with the virus on its own. Air temperature - 18-20 degrees, humidity over 50%, but not exceeding 70%. If there is no special device that moisturizes the air, you can hang out wet towels or sheets in the room.
• Follow the drinking regime. In order for the baby to sweat, the phlegm and the discharge from the nose were not viscous, thick and withdrew better, there should be a lot of fluid in the child’s body. Therefore, the patient should be given a large amount of tea, compote, decoctions, fruit drinks. But you need to be careful with additives such as raspberry, honey.
• Do not force the child to eat. This is the most common mistake of parents. Caring mothers try to feed the child at all costs, motivating their actions by the fact that “the child will not have the strength to recover”.

Komarovsky looks at it unequivocally: such actions are criminal! If the baby loses weight a little during the illness, this is a normal process. But he should ask for food himself when it becomes easier for him. Appetite usually returns a few days after the onset of the disease. The rate of recovery does not affect the amount eaten.

If you have a cold, you should not give antiviral drugs immediately and on your own parent's wishes. These medicines, like any others, should be prescribed by a doctor according to strictly defined indications mainly when the child has a risk that the viral ailment will be complicated by a secondary bacterial infection. Parents cannot independently assess the degree of such risk; it always seems to them that their baby is ill and suffers terribly.

To grow a healthy generation, Komarovsky recommends that parents switch their attention from the methods of treating those or other colds with different medicines to prevention and proper care. If a child is sick, he does not need a “magic” pill or “miraculous” syrup, but fresh air, bed rest, plenty of warm drinks and vitamins.

Parents often sick Children Komarovsky advises less to drive the children of the doctors. If a baby has a cold many times a year, and at the same time gets the right care, the disease only “hardens” its immunity, says Evgeny Olegovich. A normal, strong immunity - the guarantee of health in the future.

To cope with SARS or flu, the body of the child is able to independently, without antiviral pills, drops and syrups, said Komarovsky. After all, immunity "remembers" every threat from the outside. And if once he coped with a specific virus, then the next time he will do it even faster, in a natural way, thanks to interferon proteins, which are produced at the cellular level in response to the invasion of the virus.

Most doctors advise and even strongly recommend giving antiviral drugs for the prevention of influenza and ARVI, but Komarovsky claims that it does not make sense to prevent diseases with the help of medicines. The best preventive remedy for seasonal colds is an active lifestyle, playing sports, walking in the fresh air, food rich in vitamins and minerals, tempering.

Gauze masks, which are used and recommended for prophylaxis during periods of high morbidity, cannot restrain the spread of the virus, Komarovsky said. The fact is that the size of viruses is much smaller than the holes in gauze. But from the droplets of sputum and snot, which, when sneezing and coughing, are spread around themselves by infected people, masks are partially able to protect those around them. Thus, according to the famous pediatrician, masks are not needed by healthy children, they are needed by the sick.

If the attending pediatrician prescribes antiviral drugs for your child as part of a combination therapy, listen to Komarovsky, and do not hesitate to check with a specialist if you need anti-viral medications. Usually, there is no special need for them; according to generally accepted practice, doctors prescribe them to almost all people with ARVI. This scheme, which partially frees the doctor himself from the possible legal liability for bacterial complications that subsequently developed.