Why hoarse breathing when falling asleep. Why does the baby wheeze? Causes and possible diseases. Rattles in the foreign body in the respiratory tract

Wheezing when breathing in a child almost always indicates the presence in the lungs, bronchi or throat inflammatory process   or virus infection. Under this term, as a rule, we understand the extraneous noise heard during breathing. In children, it is more difficult to identify them than in adults. In children from a year to seven, symptoms typical for SARS in adults are often observed. It's about breathing hard. With age, they themselves pass. Also, wheezing in a child without a temperature can be difficult to listen to, since the baby feels good and does not want to sit quietly for a full minute and breathe at the command of parents or doctors.

Possible treatments may include a bulb syringe, humidifier, or spray.

  • Whistling is accompanied by a whistling sound.
  • Possible causes of inflammation in a child include allergies, bronchiolitis and asthma.
When your child wheezes, they may take a little breath, accompanied by a whistling sound. Because of the small airways of a child, many things can wheeze when they breathe. Some of them are quite common, while others are worrying.

Normal breathing sounds for an infant may vary. When your child is sleeping, they can take more slowly and deeper than when they are awake and awake. Horror is not the same as hard breath. Sometimes wheezing or sighing is also not the same as wheezing.

Types of children's wheezing

Rattles in children, as in adults, are divided primarily by their localization. They are pulmonary, bronchial or tracheal. Rattles in the lungs may be whistling, large bubble, small bubble, medium bubble. There are cases when extraneous sounds   when breathing comes from the nasopharynx or throat. This happens after long cries (they say that the child is hoarse). Either the symptom is a clear sign of an allergic reaction or a beginning ARVI.

Drinking usually occurs during expiration. This happens when something blocks or narrows the lower airways in the lungs. Tiny pieces of dried mucus can create, for example, a short whistling noise when your child breathes. Although many things can make your child sound like wheezing, it is often difficult to say true wheezing   without a stethoscope.

Consistent whistling noise or any breaths accompanied by a rumbling sound are a reason to pay close attention and see if something else is happening. If your child is whistling because of an infection, it is important to keep them moisturized. Make sure you give them plenty of fluids. Hydration will help loosen mucus and clear the nasal passages.

In addition to localization, wheezing are dry and wet, permanent and periodic, whistling and crepitating. Very often they are combined with cough. Sometimes wheezing is heard when you inhale (then they are called inspiratory), and sometimes - when you exhale (expiratory). Wheezing in a child without a temperature, regardless of the source, does not require emergency medical care (provided that he is able to breathe independently and there are no signs of asphyxiation). However, it will not hurt to show it to the attending pediatrician, especially in cases when neither the cause of noisy breathing nor its source is clear.

Treatment of wheezing in a child

Your child may also be assigned to use a spray bottle. Your doctor may recommend saline. Medicine, called albuterol, is sometimes used, mixed with saline, to open the airways. This probably will not reduce wheezing for other reasons. Children often experience respiratory disorders, causing cough. Some conditions are characterized by difficulty breathing or wheezing. Some disorders can cause wheezing and various concomitant symptoms.

Causes of wheezing in children

The main causes of wheezing in a child can be:

  • bronchial asthma;
  • mechanical obturation of the lumen of the bronchi or trachea;
  • accumulation of fluid in the chest cavity (hydrothorax).

Sometimes, especially in small children, wheezing can also be due to the fact that the foreign body in airway   makes breathing difficult. It could get into the larynx, and into the bronchi and into the trachea through the mouth. Very often this is promoted by children's curiosity and the desire to stuff various small objects into your mouth - peas, fruit stones, small toys and parts from them, coins.

Although home treatments can help with mild coughing and shortness of breath, serious symptoms require the attention of your child's pediatrician. A whistling whistle that occurs when your child exhales and inhales. Although wheezing may seem terrible, it rarely signals a serious disorder, according to the best health channel, Australian medical and medical website. Common childhood diseases often cause this reflex respiratory action, which helps clear the throat and chest.

Conditions that affect the respiratory system can cause wheezing. Colds and allergies can lead to coughing and wheezing. Providing a child with cigarette smoke in your home or car can increase the risk of developing respiratory problems. Bronchiolitis, viral infection   respiratory system, can cause your child whistling. Asthma can also cause noisy breathing and whistling sounds.

It may be that a foreign body fell during a conversation or a coughing fit. In this case, food or foreign object   closes the lumen of the trachea and thereby prevents the flow of air into the lungs. Then the respiratory rate in children begins to increase, but oxygen does not pass and as a result, choking may occur.

Symptoms of the disease

Wheezing is not the main disease, but only a signal that a failure has occurred in the body. They are accompanied by additional symptoms:

If wheezing does not cause breathing problems and your child does not work, you can probably calm him down at home. Offer him plenty of fluids, giving him small sips at frequent intervals, rather than with large drinks. Add moisture to the air using a humidifier or steam from a hot shower. Talk with your doctor before offering over-the-counter cough medicine to your child.

Some cases of wheezing require medical attention. A wheezing that does not disappear or does not return may be a sign of asthma. Situations requiring immediate medical attention include fast or irregular breathing, skin that appears blue or pale, unusual tiredness and refusal to eat or drink. While children often have fevers with respiratory diseasesA fever above 102 Fahrenheit can signal the presence of pneumonia, a serious illness requiring medical treatment.

  • shortness of breath or chest pain;
  • cough, dry or wet;
  • fever or fever;
  • the child is sweating profusely, looking weak and exhausted;
  • may complain of a headache.

All this is necessary to know in order to determine the disease. In infants, wheezing can occur as a result of a long cry. In addition to wheezing, agonizing cough, vomiting, breathing difficulties should be promptly sought. medical care.

Noisy breathing can also alert you of a choking condition. A child who suddenly starts whistling may suffocate from a piece of food or other object. Strangulation is an emergency. Your doctor may need to run tests to determine the root cause of your child's wheezing. The correct course of treatment depends on the cause of the respiratory disorder. Your child may need antibiotics to clean. bacterial infections   or antihistamines to reduce the frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

How to hear wheezing?

Medical workers do this with a special device - a phonendoscope. It allows you to locally amplify sounds. Often, pulmonary or bronchial rales are clearly audible by simply leaning your ear to your back or rib cage. There are also such diseases in which the gurgling in the chest is impossible not to notice, even at some distance from the patient. If the sound source is the throat or nasopharynx, the noise is usually accompanied by pain, voice distortion and difficulty breathing.

Persistent coughing or wheezing may require antihistamines to combat allergies. Any parent worries about a sick child, but this anxiety increases at night. Parents go to doctors or call nurses at night most often for fevers, but the second most common reason is breathing problems, such as “wheezing.” By telephone, the doctor or nurse can get an idea of ​​whether or not you need to see the child urgently.

The pediatrician’s primary focus will be that your child is in respiratory distress, and measuring your child’s respiratory rate is the simplest and most accurate assessment of respiratory distress. Respiratory rate 60 or more times per minute in infants and young children or 40 or more times per minute in older children indicates respiratory distress.

In early childhood (especially up to a year), it is very difficult to diagnose and treat diseases. The infant cannot say what specifically bothers him. At the same time baby wheezing can be the result of both a long cry, and a complex (and sometimes even dangerous) disease. It is not always easy for a mother to understand whether her child is choking or just crying for too long.

With the expiration of the validity period, you may notice that their edges are more pronounced, with a “hollow” area just above them chest boneand their noses look like a rabbit. It is important to note that children suffering from respiratory distress cannot sleep because they are too zealous to breathe. If your child suffers from respiratory distress, he needs immediate medical attention, and if not, your pediatrician will have time to ask about other symptoms.

Dangerous symptoms and possible complications

The definition of "wheezing" is not intuitive. It is not a whistling sound caused by nasal congestion, and it is not the crackling that you feel in your child’s chest, which is a congestion on the large airways. This is a high musical sound, heard during the expiration, which indicates a very small airway restriction, which leads to air pockets of the lungs or alveoli, usually accompanied by a short dry cough. With the exception of babies, wheezing is mainly caused by asthma, and the history or family history of allergies and asthma is common.

Doctors advise to pay attention to other symptoms. If the baby, once on hand, immediately calmed down, looks healthy and behaves normally (despite the wheezing), you can not worry. In the case when the skin appears bluish tint, and breathing is clearly difficult - you need to sound the alarm. This may be a symptom of a cold or infection, or a more serious illness. Such signs also sometimes indicate that foreign objects have entered the respiratory system. It is important that in all these cases it is required urgent Care   specialist.

Croup is a condition that can be mistaken for asthma and wheezing. It occurs in young children at night and has a cough that sounds like a husky with a choking sound when the baby is breathing. This is caused by inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, the trachea, just below the flap that separates the trachea and the esophagus. While scary to watch, it usually dies down the cool, humid, night air of your back porch.

This can occur with respiratory distress, especially in infants, but it can also be caused by congestion and fever. Thus, grunting alone is not a reliable sign of the extent of your child’s illness and is only useful in the context of other signs of a breathing problem. If you are worried about your child having difficulty breathing, immediately contact your pediatrician or his call service.

When should I see a doctor?

Wheezing while breathing in a child is not a cause for panic. But in conjunction with some other symptoms require immediate treatment to a doctor. "Ambulance" should be called if strong wheezing in a child is accompanied high fever   (from 38 and more), repeated vomiting, marked difficulty in breathing (there is a threat of asphyxiation) or under one year old (if they have not passed within 5 minutes to eliminate the “false alarm” caused by a long cry).

They are intended to be used by healthcare professionals, so you can find a language more technical than condition booklets. A whistling whistle is a high whistling sound that occurs when small airways narrow in the presence of any of the following.

Diagnosis and treatment of wheezing

Cigarette smoke or other forms of air pollution. Gastroesophageal reflux. Body disease. Rare causes include trachea-esophageal fistula, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, bronchiectasis, heart failure, congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, immunodeficiency, external compression of the respiratory tract, tracheobronchomatization, and ciliary dyskinesia.

  • Bronchospasm.
  • The use of mucous membranes.
  • Excessive discharge.
  • Inhaled foreign body.
  • Infection of the respiratory tract.
  • Permanent wheezing in infancy.
  • Bronchiolitis.
  • Group.
Always consider any red flags that indicate urgent need for evaluation and treatment — for example, poor nutrition, cyanosis, respiratory distress, drowsiness, or poor response to treatment.

In all other cases, there is no need for urgent intervention by a specialist. If a child has a cough with wheezing, fever   (within acceptable limits) and other signs respiratory infection, it is enough to call the local doctor. Self-treatment is permissible when all the symptoms have already been observed before, the specialist was diagnosed and prescribed treatment. A visit to the clinic still have to be planned if the cough does not go away in a week, despite all the measures taken. The doctor should be invited to the house, even if the temperature of the baby is not very high, but it was not possible to normalize it in 7 days.

Also the section "Children with the problem of respiratory complications." No treatment has been shown to prevent the progression of pre-school wheeze to school-age asthma. Therefore, treatment is associated only with current symptoms. In all but the most severe cases, episodic symptoms should be treated with episodic treatment. If prophylactic treatment is initiated, it should be stopped at the end of a strictly defined period of time, because many respiratory symptoms are spontaneously transmitted to children of preschool age.

Periodic or permanent wheezing

Prednisolone is not indicated in preschool children with bouts of wheezing, which are good enough to stay at home, and not indicated for children hospitalized with occasional viral wheezing. There are two main forms of presentation, depending on the beginning and age: acute onset of wheezing in an infant. A delay lasting or repeating for more than four weeks is most often caused by reactive airway disease. This diagnosis is also suggested by repeated coughing and response to bronchodilator therapy.

Investigation of possible causes

  • Repeated or constant wheezing.
  • Caused by obstruction anywhere from intrathoracic trachea to large bronchioles.
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Medical events

To approach the issue of treatment of wheezing should begin with a visit to the pediatrician. The doctor must determine the cause: sputum or a foreign body in the bronchi or lungs, narrowing of the airways. The diagnosis is made on the basis of x-ray examination of the lungs, auscultation, the results of external examination and survey of a sick child or his parents. If a diagnosis of acute respiratory viral infections is made, antiviral drugs are prescribed in the first hours or days from the moment of the disease. Often the cause of wheezing is bronchial inflammation. Tactics of treatment in this case depends on the causative agent of the disease. If it is a virus, then apply antivirals. In the presence of bacterial bronchitis, antibiotics are indicated. Currently used drugs group macrolides, penicillins and cephalosporins. The dosage is prescribed by a pediatrician or therapist, depending on the age of the child.

To maintain the pleasure of relaxing in the water, it is important to stay safe. Recent cases of secondary drowning have drawn attention to a less well-known phenomenon. While unusual, understanding causes and symptoms can help prevent tragedy.

Severe drowning - the most familiar form - can occur within a few minutes, as water fills the airways, and the body is deprived of oxygen. In contrast, secondary drowning may develop hours after the fact and without water remaining in the airways. This is a secondary injury - something caused by a drowning incident, but separate from it.

In the presence of moist rales, accompanied by coughing and sputum discharge, expectorant agents are shown. These include the root of Althea, Mukaltin and some others. It must be remembered that these medicines are undesirable for infants, because they can cause coughing   and vomiting. Expectorants are indicated when there are wheezing with sparse and inviscid sputum. To dilute the sputum it is advisable to use mucolytics. The most well-known drugs such as ACC, Bromhexin, Ambrobene.

For children, it is preferable to choose such dosage forms   for the treatment of bronchitis, like syrups, tinctures, potions. To eliminate coughing and wheezing, antitussives are used. They oppress the cough center. It is important that they should not be prescribed simultaneously with mucolytics, since sputum will accumulate in the bronchi, which can provoke obstruction. They are shown only with dry cough and dry rales. If wheezing in a child is caused by bronchitis of an allergic nature, then it is advisable to use antihistamines.

Other treatments

It is possible to treat wheezing by inhalation. Such procedures are very effective for severe bronchial obstruction. Wheezing during sleep and wakefulness in children, as well as hoarseness and cough indicate sputum accumulation. Inhalation helps to thin the sputum and reduce wheezing. Inhalations are made on the basis of the following components:

  • mineral water;
  • soda solution;
  • herbs and oils;
  • drugs ("Salbutamol", "Beroteka").

For inhalation, you need a special device called a nebulizer. It helps to disperse the substance that enters the bronchi and lungs. Inhalation is used in the presence of asthma in children. The inhaler should always be on hand to prevent the child from suffocating. Inhalation done after a meal. Their use is appropriate for children aged two years and older. Steam inhalation can last several minutes. Their duration and frequency is established by the attending physician, based on the child's age. Other methods of treating wheezing for bronchitis suggest massage, therapeutic exercises, physiotherapy, compresses, warming, receiving medicinal decoctions and infusions.

Treatment of wheezing in a foreign body in the respiratory tract

If the obstruction of the respiratory tract with a foreign object has caused wheezing in a child, then what to do in this case? If with bronchitis and pneumonia, rales in the lungs and bronchi are treated conservatively, then emergency care is required. If a foreign body enters the airways, an ambulance should be called. A variety of small objects (buttons, pieces of food, bones, balls) can act as a foreign body. They are able to enter the upper or lower parts of the respiratory system. This condition is dangerously possible with apnea and asphyxia.

If you have wheezing in the nasopharynx, you must give the baby a blow to his nose. No need to try to get a foreign object on their own. First aid includes the use of Heimlich. To do this, you need to stand behind the baby, clasp his hands in the area of ​​the midline of the abdomen, squeezing his hands with a lock. After that, you need to sharply and strongly push back and up. It creates high pressure   in the abdominal cavity, which will help the exit of a foreign particle. You can just strongly pat the child between the shoulder blades.

Treatment of wheezing with pneumonia

Wheezing in the lungs in a child occurs on the background of pneumonia. Other symptoms of pneumonia include rapid breathing, cough with or without sputum, hoarseness, intoxication, cyanosis of the nasolabial triangle and skin, and an increase in body temperature. It is possible to get rid of wheezing in this situation by the complex treatment of pneumonia, including the use of antibiotics, NSAIDs, expectorant and mucolytic drugs, vitamins, physiotherapy.

Prevention

Of course, all parents dream of the health of their own children. But very few carry out concrete actions aimed at maintaining it. It is primarily about proper nutrition, regular physical exertion, active recreation, nature walks and hardening. Children do not need to wrap up and stuff antibiotics at the first symptoms of a cold. After all, immunity is developed at this age. If it is constantly suppressed by excessive care and chemical preparationsthen, as a result, a sick child will have an adult with a bunch of chronic diseases.

Wheezing in children can be a sign of a wide variety of ailments, ranging from a normal respiratory infection to complex bronchitis, pneumonia, and even asthma. Most effective method   get rid of wheezing in children - to cure the underlying disease and normalize the airway. Therefore, in the event that they do not pass and are accompanied by fever and other symptoms, you should consult a doctor.

Parents can get seriously scared when they hear their child wheezing, especially if it happens in a dream. It is easiest to suspect the presence of the disease, but sometimes such sounds can be caused by natural causes.It will be helpful for parents to know how to cope with such a child’s condition and when it is necessary to urgently seek medical help.

Find out why the child wheezes, it is necessary, especially when it comes to the baby. The cause of hoarseness may be coldswhich manifests itself in the early stages only by subtle changes in timbre and voiced voices.

And he needs to be treated as quickly as possible, since in a state of neglect it threatens with many dangerous complications.

To physiological include the following:

  • Overload due to increased loads on them, for example, with prolonged crying or a strong hysterical cry.
  • Too dry air in the room, because of which the baby's mucous membranes of the throat dry up, and the voice becomes hoarse or hoarse.
  • An accumulation of mucus in the nasal passages that can drain along back wall   pharynx and fall into the bronchi. Usually, in such cases, parents say that along with wheezing “gurgling” is often heard, especially during sleep.
  • Drying of mucus in the nose leads to the formation of hard crusts, which irritate the delicate mucosa and also lead to hoarseness.
  • Sometimes a baby breastfeeding sucks very eagerly. When this happens, the milk gets into the nose, dries out and provokes the hoarseness of breathing.

Useful video: the first signs of laryngitis in a child

Pathological causes include the following:

  1. Infectious diseases accompanied abundant excretion   mucus and inflammation of the mucous membranes of the throat. Hoarseness can be caused by many diseases, for example, or, as well as any species, the presence of a child. Especially dangerous can be such infectious diseases, like, diphtheria, false croup. All of them somehow affect the change in the sound of the voice.
  2. Distortion and hoarseness in the voice can be triggered by allergic reactions that cause puffiness and blockage of the respiratory tract, as well as bronchial asthma, bronchospasm.
  3. Malfunction gastrointestinal tract: An intake of the acidic contents of the stomach can cause severe irritation of the throat and respiratory tract, leading to changes in the voice.
  4. Problems with the nervous system. In humans, everything is interconnected, and pathology nervous system   can affect the voice of spasms, speech difficulties, hoarseness, slurred sound.
  5. Papillomatosis of the larynx. Wherein viral disease   in the throat of the child appear rough education in the form of coarse growths. They can significantly affect the sound produced, especially if they are formed on vocal cords.
  6. Another cause of hoarseness may be nodules on the vocal cords. If there are many of them or they have a significant amount, the sound of the child’s voice may change beyond recognition. In severe cases, it can develop - a complete loss of voice.
  7. In adolescents, during puberty, the voice “breaks down”, which is a completely natural phenomenon, especially in boys. If the sound starts to change much earlier, this may indicate existing hormonal problems, which requires an appeal to a doctor.

When unexplained hoarseness and hoarseness appear in the child's voice, it is necessary to be examined by a specialist, especially if we are talking about a baby or sound distortions are accompanied by other threatening signs.

Dangerous symptoms and possible complications


Finding out why the child is wheezing, it is necessary to eliminate serious health problems. They may be accompanied by various additional features.

These include the following:

  • Increased body temperature. This condition is the first indicator of the presence of infection and inflammation of the child, so the visit to the doctor should be almost immediate.
  • Adding to hoarseness, redness of the eyes, pain in the ears and / or chest. This indicates an extension of the infection and damage to neighboring organs.
  • Nausea, vomiting. Often, young children feel sick at a temperature or severe irritation in the throat.
  • Headache.
  • Rash on the body.
  • Great weakness, lethargy, or excessive overexcitement.
  • Loss of consciousness.
  • Disorders of breathing, stopping, intermittent, gurgling breath. The child hardly breathes and exhales the air, films or foam may appear in the throat.
  • Blue lips.

Such symptoms require calling an ambulance, as they may be signs of development dangerous bronchitis, pneumonia, whooping cough, diphtheria, false croup and other extremely dangerous diseases. Also, the same signs can be observed during an attack of allergy, bronchial asthma, bronchospasm (most often without fever). Sometimes it comes to saving the life of a child.

Drug treatment


Prescribe treatment with medication can only doctor after diagnosis and the installation of the correct diagnosis. This is a very important point, because self-medication can cause irreparable harm to the health of the baby, and the adolescent, too.

Features of treatment depending on the cause:

  • The croup, whooping cough, diphtheria and - are infectious and easily transmitted diseases, therefore children with such diagnoses are usually hospitalized. Treatment mainly consists in the selection of antibiotics that affect the corresponding pathogenic microflora, as well as in the appointment of symptomatic drugs: anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic, as well as supporting the immune system, vitamins. The same treatment is necessary for, and. Sometimes coping with tonsillitis in children is possible exclusively by surgical methods.
  • With different types   allergies prescribed antihistamines, with bronchospasm and bronchial asthma   - bronchodilators and antispasmodics, cough drops.
  • Treatment of hormonal disorders must be entrusted to the endocrinologist, no initiative here should be allowed. For pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, the main disease must be treated. After his disappearance, he will cease to disturb and why the child wheezes even at rest.
  • Surgical intervention may also be required if there are papillomas or nodules in the vocal cords in the throat.
  • Diseases of the nervous system are treated by a specialist in line with the age of the patient.

In the case of naturally occurring hoarseness, it is enough to regularly clean the child's nose, suck mucus when the head cold, and with dry air, get it a moisturizer. If these methods do not help, the doctor will prescribe washing and irrigation. salineor other drops.


If hoarseness is caused allergic reaction, croup, whooping cough and other dangerous diseasesThreatening your baby may be inhaled by steam or soda solution. Little baby   it is easier to pick up and enter with him into the bathroom, filled with steam from a hot shower. We remind you that this is not a treatment, but only a way to stop an attack before the arrival of the ambulance.

In cases where the cause is an infection, it is recommended to drink a lot, the best decoctions of medicinal herbs, tea with honey or raspberries, hot milk with honey, decoction of rose hips.

To speed up the disappearance of hoarseness, you can make compresses on the throat (only in the absence of purulent processes in it).

Preventive measures are to harden the baby, proper nutrition and hygiene. It is necessary to monitor the humidity of the air and regularly clean the child's nose, as well as seek medical attention in a timely manner for any suspicious symptoms.

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