Causes of pneumonia in children, signs of its appearance

Pneumonia in prevalence is one of the first places in the world. According to WHO statistics, 150 million children under the age of 5 years with pneumonia are registered worldwide. So what is it and what does pneumonia look like in children? The symptoms of this disease we will consider in this article.

Is pneumonia and how does it occur

Inflammation of the lungs has a viral, bacterial and fungal form. But there are rare cases when this disease can be contagious. As a rule, these are those species that were caused by pneumococci. When pneumonia in children, signs are very similar to the symptoms of a viral infection, and in the vast majority of cases it is just a complication of acute respiratory disease. With this disease, the virus can cause inflammation in the bronchi, and the mucus that is being developed because of this, accumulates in the lungs over time, and disturbs the ventilation of a site in them. There bacteria settle down and an inflammatory process arises. Thus, the inflammation of the lungs in a child appears mainly under the condition of accumulation and thickening of mucus at the time of acute respiratory infections.

How to detect the presence of pneumonia in children: the signs by which it can be determined

There are symptoms that will help parents to suspect that the child has pneumonia :

1. The patient has an obsessive moist cough, and breathing becomes rapid and superficial.
2. The baby's state of health is unstable: after improvement with a cold, a sudden deterioration suddenly occurs.
3. The so-called "cold" lasts more than a week.
4. Trying to take a deep breath causes a child to have a coughing fit. This can be a serious reason to think about the presence of pneumonia.
5. Appearance of shortness of breath at a low body temperature.
6. Absence of the effect of taking antipyretics.

All these signs of pneumonia in children (or at least some of them) require immediate treatment to a pulmonologist for diagnosis and treatment of the child.

What should I do to detect pneumonia?

If there is no possibility to contact a pediatrician, if you suspect a pneumonia, you need to call an ambulance. The doctor will by all means listen to the patient and in the presence of wet wheezing, characteristic for pneumonia, will diagnose. But to confirm it you need to take an X-ray. It allows you to determine the diagnosis as precisely as possible. After all, sometimes it happens that it is externally rather difficult to determine the presence of pneumonia in children. The signs of it on the X-ray image are seen better, which means that these indicators will be given priority. To determine the causative agent of this disease, sputum and blood tests are done. Only after this treatment will be prescribed.

How do "extraneous" diseases cause pneumonia?

Why sometimes with the diagnosis of "acute intestinal infection" a child in a few days can develop pneumonia? In addition to all known organs that deal with blood purification (liver and kidneys), the lungs also have to do with the filtration process. With any illness, the pulmonary filter can be damaged, and, accordingly, a focus of inflammation, infection with bacteria will appear.

The high temperature, causing thickening and stagnation of blood, also causes a complication in the form of inflammation. So the emergence of pneumonia in children, the signs of which we dismantled, may be secondary, that is, which comes as a result of other diseases that weaken the body and open the "gate" of infection.