What Is Croup? Most kids with croup get better in a week or so. What Are the Symptoms of Croup? Symptoms of croup are often worse at night and when a child is upset or crying. What Causes Croup? How Is Croup Diagnosed? How Is Croup Treated? Breathing in moist air can help kids feel better. To help your child breathe in moist air: Use a cool-mist humidifier or run a hot shower to create a steam-filled bathroom where you can sit with your child for 10 minutes.
Breathing in the mist will sometimes stop the severe coughing. In cooler weather, taking your child outside for a few minutes to breathe in the cool air may ease symptoms. You also can try taking your child for a drive with the car windows slightly lowered. When Should I Call the Doctor? Call your doctor or get medical care right away if your child: has trouble breathing, including very fast or labored breathing is too out of breath to talk or walk has pulling in of the neck and chest muscles when breathing has stridor that is getting worse is pale or bluish around the mouth is drooling or has trouble swallowing is very tired or sleepy or hard to awaken is dehydrated signs include a dry or sticky mouth, few or no tears when crying, sunken eyes, thirst, peeing less.
At first, your child may have a stuffy or runny nose and may have a low fever. As the swelling gets worse, he or she will get a barky cough and his voice may sound hoarse. When your child breathes in, you may hear a "crowing" or a high-pitched squeaking sound, called stridor.
He may also breathe very fast or have retractions. Your child may become frightened or upset. There is no medicine that will get rid of the virus, but you can do some things to help your child breathe easier until the infection goes away. Follow the dosing directions for your child. If your child goes to the hospital or to urgent care, he may be given a steroid treatment and watched for a few hours to see if his breathing improves.
Steroids help reduce the swelling and thus make breathing easier. Croup PDF. Skip to Content. She also may become too tired to cough, and you may hear the stridor more with each breath. The danger of croup with stridor is that sometimes the airway may swell so much that your child may barely be able to breathe. In the most severe cases, your child will not be getting enough oxygen into her blood.
If this happens, she needs to go to the hospital. Luckily, these most severe cases of croup do not occur very often. If your child wakes up in the middle of the night with croup, try to keep him calm. Keeping him calm may help him breathe better. In the past, parents may have been advised to try steam treatment in the bathroom. Though some parents may find that this helps improve breathing, there are no studies to prove that inhaling steam in a bathroom is effective.
There are also no studies to prove that breathing in moist, cool night airs helps improve breathing. If you are concerned that your child's croup is not improving, contact your child's doctor, local emergency department, or emergency medical services even if it is the middle of the night. Consider calling if your child:. If your child has viral croup, your child's doctor or the emergency department doctor may give your child a breathing treatment with epinephrine adrenaline to decrease the swelling.
After epinephrine is given, your child should be observed for 3 to 4 hours to confirm that croup symptoms do not return. A steroid medicine may also be prescribed to reduce the swelling. Steroids can be inhaled, taken by mouth, or given by injection. Treatment with a few doses of steroids should do no harm.
Steroids may decrease the intensity of symptoms, the need for other medications, and time spent in the hospital and emergency department. For spasmodic croup, your child's doctor may recommend allergy or reflux medicines to help your child's breathing. Antibiotics , which treat bacteria, are not helpful for treating croup because they are almost always caused by a virus or by allergy or reflux.
Cough syrups are not useful and may do harm. Another cause of stridor and serious breathing problems is acute supraglottitis also called epiglottitis. This is a dangerous infection, usually caused by bacteria, with symptoms that can resemble croup.
Luckily, this infection is much less common now because of the Haemophilus influenzae type b Hib vaccine. Rarely, supraglottitis is caused by other bacteria. Acute supraglottitis usually affects children 2 to 5 years of age and comes on suddenly with a high fever.
Your child may seem very sick. He may have a muffled voice and prefer to sit upright with his neck extended and face tilted upward in a "sniffing" position to make his breathing easier.
He also may drool because he cannot swallow the saliva in his mouth. If not treated, this disease could rapidly lead to complete blockage of your child's airway.
Your child must go to the hospital right away. If he has supraglottitis, he will need antibiotics, and he may also need a tube in his windpipe to help him breathe. Call your child's doctor right away if you think your child may have supraglottitis. Your child should get the first dose of the Hib vaccine when he is 2 months of age. This vaccine will also protect against meningitis a swelling in the covering of the brain. Since the Hib vaccine has been available, the number of cases of acute supraglottitis and meningitis has dramatically decreased.
When croup persists or recurs frequently, it may be a sign that your child has some narrowing of the airway that is not related to an infection.
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