What to do if your child has Croup

It is three o’clock in the morning and you hear your child’s cry over the baby monitor. It is a cry that you have never heard before. The cry is coming out sounding like a wheeze. It is followed by a bark like cough. You get up and rush into your child’s room. What is going on with your child?

Your child most likely has Croup. For a parent or any one who has never witnessed a child having a croup attack it be can be scary. You don’t know what to do. You feel helpless. Croup is a an illness that hits children from the ages of three months and five years. It can be very scary especially if you have never experienced it.

Croup is a common occurrence in our home, usually beginning with our four-year-old and followed a few days later by our 17-month-old. We have discovered that if my oldest son brings a virus into the house with-in a few days both boys will have it.

As a child, I was also prone to croup so I was all too aware of the typical symptoms:

1. cough that sounds like a seal’s bark
2. It happens in the early hours of the morning.
3. laboured breathing
4. a fever

If you have ever heard the high pitched sounds when a child is trying to breath, you know how terrifying it is to hear it. Just try to imagine what it sounds like to your child.

When one of our children have an attack, my husband or I will either take them into the bathroom and run a hot shower and allow them to breath in the steam or we will take the child outside to breath in the cool night air. Either option helps to calm them down and breathe a little better.

With my oldest son, it can usually be treated by taking him into the bathroom and turning on the shower. Through out the first day, he will take two puffs three times a day of the inhaler – prescribed by our family doctor. This will normally help.

On two different occasions we have had to take my youngest son to the local Emergency room. His symptoms were more severe. He doesn’t understand what is going on. Every time he coughs, he cries and every time he cries he coughs, making it difficult to calm him. When he is upset, he has a high pitched squeal and has a lot of difficulty breathing.

The first time we brought him in- he was treated with epinephrine to help him breath. This was given orally with a mask. He was also given dexamethasone, which is a steroid, to help the swelling around the vocal cords and windpipe.

We have a humidifier that we set up in our son’s room when he has an attack and this seems to help. To help prevent Croup, I keep the boys rooms relatively tidy and vacuum their bedrooms every other day to keep the dust at bay.

Allison Atwater is a freelance writer from Surrey BC and lives with her husband and two young sons. Visit her blogThe Writing Mum.

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