8 month old chesty/cough

[Ceejay123]

My little man was born after inhaling meconium, he had a severe lung infection. Had to be placed on a ventilator for a week/tubes/feeding tubes in an incubator.

He came home shortly after once he'd recovered and his results returned to normal. But he's never had a clear chest.

He has a severe (i mean I've never heard worse) cough at least once a month. Then it seems to get a little better.. but it's never gone, before another severe one shows up.

If he drinks milk, he gets wind.. but it seems to rattle like fluid in his chest. As if he seriously needs to cough, rather than burp.

I've been to the GP multiple times who just tells me it's viral every damn time!

Any ideas? Any way I can bypass the GP to get him looked at? He was coughing phlegm from his mouth the other day!

 

[MindUtopia]

I think given his history it's certainly worth keeping a close eye on. If it's just a cough, it's probably not anything to be too worried about in the absence of other things, like laboured breathing and a fever. Usually when they are truly unwell, their respiration rate goes up (I think more than 60 breaths per minute should be a red flag in babies under one), they look like they are struggling to breath (if you take his shirt off and watch him breathe it would be obvious, his ribs would show, it would look like a really exaggerated breath), he would seem really sleepy all the time and/or have a high fever. They also should be checking his oxygen saturation when you take him in (it's a little clip thing that goes on the finger and measures how much oxygen is in his blood). When my daughter has been genuinely ill, it was really obvious, but she doesn't have a history of respiratory problems, so I definitely would keep an eye on it and be more vigilant. That said, my daughter was born healthy and hasn't had any serious health issues, and she has a chesty phlegmy cough about 8 months out of the year. Any time she gets sick with a cold, which is about once a month, she gets a lingering chesty cough that lasts about a month and then gets sick again. So from October to May, she's like this every year (she's about to turn 3 now). It's never been raised as a concern and most of the time she's not truly ill (doesn't even get a fever and seems relatively fine), it's just this cough. Some of her nursery teachers have raised concerns about whether it might be asthma (I have asthma, so it's something I've worried about), so we're keeping an eye on it. I do think it's pretty normal though, but I would expect it would clear up for some periods of time and get worse for others. For us, it's usually fine in the summer and gets bad again by autumn time.

 

[swampmaiden]

Sounds like your lo may have a special case, but as another perspective, my 8 month old just got over a chesty congested cold, and it really helped at night while she was sleeping to have her slightly inclined up, like put a pad or rolled towl under her crib mattress, and let gravity help clear the wet stuff out. Good luck!