Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Dealing with a baby's cold

The girls and I are going through our second baby cold (well we were two months ago when I first started this post, right now we all seem to be pretty healthy). Everything is more fun with twins, right? *smile* I have found several natural things to do, many of them are the same treatments my mom and her mom before her used. So far we have been able to take care of things without the help of a doctor. I'd love to hear about things that have worked for you too. Any ideas I haven't tried?
(I feel silly saying this, but of course I am not a doctor and I'm not trying to practice medicine here. I'm also not saying you need to do any of these things; just sharing what I do.)
Saline Nasal Spray I picked this up at the pharmacy (for whatever it is worth, the Walgreens pharmacy in our area seems to carry more natural type remedies) and it's made just for babies. The brand I picked up is SinuCleanse, and it has worked really well for us. I especially like that you can clean it out and use it again.
Baby vitamin C Look for this at the natural food store. It comes in a liquid and there are versions safe for every age baby. Unfortunately I was unable to pick this up until after we were all better, so we will try this on the next cold.
Collodial silver Silver is a natural anti-biotic. This was discovered before penicillin, which is one reason fancy old-fashioned baby toys are made of silver and we have the phrase "born with a silver spoon in his mouth". But they had trouble getting it into a form that could be easily used by the body, and then penicillin and other things were discovered and it was left behind. Silver is used medicinally today in the form of Silvadene cream as a topical anti-biotic on burn victims, as it is one of the few things effective and gentle enough to keep the burn clean. When I had a cocker spaniel he would get a sort of ear fungi in all the folds of his ears and the vet would give us a sort of cream-ish silver drop solution to put in his ears and it would take care of it. Up until the 70's hospitals would put silver drops in babies' eyes to prevent them from going blind in case the mother had gonorrhea. You can buy a little machine that will take silver and through an electrical process make it into little particles small enough to be suspended in water (a similar concept to homogenized milk) and this process is called "collodial". You can also buy collodial silver at a health food store. The wonderful part of silver is that it can be used on so many things. It is effective topically or orally or in your eyes or nose. Even more wonderful is that the body doesn't build up resistance to it like most newer anti-biotics. I give the girls a little bit from an eye dropper if it looks like the cold isn't clearing up. Colloidial silver is wonderful stuff to have around for more than just babies. I've used it the dozen plus times I've had a breast infection to keep the infection from spreading. A few drops in the nose are great for a sinus infection. You can put it directly on poison ivy to help clear it up. The uses roll on and on. It's hard to find accurate information on silver because the pharmaceutical companies can't make any money off of it since it isn't patentable. The only side affect I've been able to learn of is that with constant high daily doses the skin turns a blueish color, and it's not reversible. This is what I know I about silver, and hopefully I have my info correct. Be sure to leave a comment if you know something about I don't.
Chicken Broth You can read about how to make this yourself in the previous post. I made sure I didn't use any vegetables that the girls hadn't already eaten- don't know if really necessary or not but that's what I did, and let them drink it out of a sippy cup. Its nice for those days they don't really feel like eating anything much.
Eucalyptus Salve You know Vicks Vapor rub. Nothing new to tell here. I did pick up a "baby" version of it with rosemary and lavender and it smells nice.
Steam I've done this a couple of times with one of the girls who developed a rather thick cough. Just boil some water on the stove, then take it off and add some white vinegar. Then I sit with the baby on my lap and set the pot of steaming water in front of us on a stool or chair (with a pot holder under it) and cover the pot and our heads over with a towel or more recently I've found a terry cloth robe works really well. I try to make sure I have some toys to keep the baby busy and her hands off the hot pot and some tissue to wipe her nose and probably mine too. When her cough was really bad I would do this several times a time, after I fed her.
Since I started this post, which was quite a while ago I've hear that sage in steam works really good for breaking up congestion. But I'm not sure if that's as leaves or oil in the water. If you know anything about this please do share. Blessings!c

1 comment:

  1. Maybe it's just a placebo effect, but I feel like Zinc tablets and a Netti Pot help stave off a cold. Also, if you take a few drops of Astragulus (sp?) (an herb you can find at whole foods, etc) with a glass of oj, it really clears the sinuses. Hope everyone stays healthy the rest of the winter!

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