Treatment of cough during breastfeeding: medicines and folk remedies

Women with young children and breastfeeding often face various diseases that cause coughing. The pharmacy sells a huge number of effective medicines. However, self-medication during lactation is unacceptable. How to treat cough during breastfeeding?

Causes and classification of cough

Absolutely all people know such a symptom as a cough. Unfortunately, it is not a sign of any particular disease, since it can be caused by many factors:

• Mechanical irritation with foreign bodies, dust, neoplasms;
• Chemical irritation (inhalation of gases with a sharp and strong odor);
• Thermal irritation (inhalation of very cold or too hot air);
• Inflammatory reactions of the respiratory tract (bronchiolitis, bronchitis, tracheitis, laryngitis) and alveoli (with lung abscess, pneumonia).

As for the types of cough, it should be noted that in the medical literature its various classifications are used. One of them is presented to your attention. So, the described symptom can be:

• Single (if foreign matter or dust enters the respiratory tract);
• Paroxysmal (with bronchial asthma, abuse of cigarettes);
• Acute (with acute bacterial or viral infection);
• Chronic (for chronic diseases of the respiratory system, cardiac pathology).

What medications do doctors prescribe for cough?

Cough is a protective reflex of the human body, so in most cases, doctors prescribe to their patients such remedies that facilitate it. They can be recommended and such drugs that eliminate cough. Such medications are necessary in cases when the symptom negatively affects the sick person (causes suffocation, provokes vomiting).

Specialists identify the following groups of drugs that help cough:

• Mucolytics, diluting sputum and promoting its excretion ("Bromgeksin", "ATSTS", etc.);
• Antitussive drugs that inhibit cough reflex ("Bithiodine", "Codeine", etc.);
• Mucoregulatory agents that normalize the viscosity of sputum (eg, "Carbocysteine");
• Expectorants that remove accumulating sputum ("Mukaltin", "Broncholitin", etc.).

Means for coughing, prescribed to lactating women

What can you do with a cough during breastfeeding? During lactation, many specialists recommend that nursing mothers use "Mukaltin." This is an expectorant, made on the basis of polysaccharides from the herbs of medicinal althea. Contraindications for the drug is not so much. These include peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, as well as hypersensitivity to the components that make up the composition.

Sometimes doctors prescribe a thoracic elixir. This is an expectorant drug that includes aqueous ammonia, anise oil and licorice extract. This drug has no absolute contraindications to use during lactation. The thoracic elixir can not only be taken with hypersensitivity.

Cough medicine (dry) is another expectorant of plant origin. Treatment for cough during breastfeeding can be done with this remedy. It includes such effective components as dry extracts of licorice and thermopsis roots. Contraindications to the use of the drug - hypersensitivity, acute pyelonephritis, acute glomerulonephritis.

Drugs contraindicated during lactation

What can be coughing with breastfeeding is not the only question that worries mothers. Women are also interested in what medicines may be harmful. One such medicine is syrup "Tussamag". This is a liquid alcohol extract of thyme grass. The instructions to this drug indicate that "Tussamag" can not be taken during lactation. Other contraindications include:

• Chronic heart failure;
• Renal insufficiency;
• Hepatic insufficiency;
• Increased sensitivity to components;
• pregnancy.

Another example is the syrup "Doctor Mom", which has an expectorant effect. It is a combination drug from medicinal plants. Mothers are not advised to take this medication, as medicine does not know how a syrup can affect an infant (experiments on pregnant and lactating women are not carried out for ethical reasons).

Many people know medicines from the "Vix Active" line. The funds included in it are designed for the complex treatment of colds, elimination of such symptoms as nasal congestion, runny nose, cough. "Viks Active" drugs are effective, but they are prohibited for nursing mothers.

Why do I need to see a doctor?

People who have a cough should pay a visit to the doctor. This is especially important for women who are breast-feeding their children. The specialist, if necessary, will prescribe a checkup, put the correct diagnosis and write out the necessary medications that will eliminate the cough and the detected disease.

Probably, it is not a secret for anyone, why it is impossible to use drugs selected independently. First, for each disease there is a scheme of treatment. Complex drug therapy may be required, including the use not only of remedies for the described symptom, but also of other medications.

Secondly, some remedies can eliminate a cough in a nursing mother, but at the same time adversely affect the child's body.

Is it necessary to cancel breastfeeding?

Many mothers, when coughing and starting to take medicines, abolish breastfeeding because of fear that through the milk, pathogenic microorganisms and components of medicines penetrate the baby's body. At will, you can not stop feeding. Not all diseases are dangerous for the baby. For example, with the open form of tuberculosis, breastfeeding is canceled. In acute respiratory infections, which occur without significant intoxication, feeding with mother's milk is not contraindicated (pathogens are not transmitted through it).

In occasion of preparations it is worth noting that there is a list of medicines that can be drunk from cough during lactation (some of them are named above). Components of such medicines penetrate into the milk, but do not have a negative effect (when using drugs in accordance with the recommendations of the doctor and instructions).

Negatively means can affect the child with individual intolerance. Such drugs are immediately canceled and for a particular woman become contraindicated for the period of breastfeeding.

Toxicity of components of drugs present in milk

The components of those medicines that women take during lactation (as prescribed by the doctor) are in a certain amount in breast milk. Their concentration in it is quite low. It is less than the therapeutic dose for a child and, accordingly, can not be a threat to his body. Toxic phenomena sometimes arise because of prolonged use of drugs (components enter the child's body, accumulate, but not so quickly removed).

Suspicious symptoms occur, as a rule, in infants younger than 5 months. The risk group consists of newborns and premature babies. In children older toxic effects are extremely rare, because at this age they are already beginning to receive complementary foods, to eat additional mixtures (that is, "medicinal" milk is only part of the diet).

Also it is worth remembering that the behavior of babies can change not because of the impact of a particular drug. The fact is that cough treatment during breastfeeding is reflected in milk. Accepted medications change its taste. Children can because of this cry, give up breast.

Some folk recipes

Some mothers are interested in how to treat cough with breastfeeding folk remedies. Here are a few safe options:

• Daily in a warm form take apple broth;
• To drink fresh cabbage juice with sugar;
• Drink carrot juice mixed with milk in a ratio of 1: 1 (1 tablespoon 6 times a day).

With a strong cough provoking attacks of suffocation, folk healers recommend eating baked or boiled pears. This dish will benefit the nursing mother, because it contains a lot of different useful substances needed by the human body.

There are many different useful substances necessary for the human body.

Additional tips

With the described symptom, lactating mothers should take care not only that the drugs taken are not negatively affected by the children. It is very important to protect children from pathogens. Thus, Komarovsky recommends the treatment of cough during breastfeeding with the following rules:

• To drip in a nose salt drops (usual saline solution);
• Wear a gauze mask;
• Drink more warm liquids;
• More often to aerate the rooms in the house or apartment;
• For the prevention of dripping the child in the nose saline solutions.

In conclusion, it should be noted that cough treatment for breastfeeding is an urgent problem for many mothers. The appearance of this symptom is an occasion to visit a doctor. Only a specialist can recommend effective medications that, in the shortest possible time, will cough and not cause harm to the child.