What You Need to Know about Pediatric Nebulizers
Nebulizers are one type of medical treatment your child might need, especially if she has trouble breathing. If you’re new to nebulizers, you might not fully understand what they do and how they function. Learning as much as you can about nebulizers can help you to explain them to your child.
What Do Nebulizers Do?
Nebulizers work very similarly to inhalers, but they expose a person to the medication for a longer period of time. The medication itself is atomized into tiny droplets that are easy to inhale via a water mist. There’s usually a mask that fits over your child’s nose and mouth, which helps with inhaling the medication more readily.
Signs Your Child Might Need a Nebulizer
If your child has had lung issues for a long time, you may already know when a nebulizer is necessary. But if your child is new to having breathing troubles, you might not realize when a nebulizer would be most helpful. Some of those signs might be:
- Coughing
- Shortness of breath
- Difficulty breathing
- Pain in the chest
- Wheezing sounds
Keep Your Child Involved in the Process
It’s a lot easier for kids to keep up with medical treatments, even ones as simple as a nebulizer treatment, if they’re involved in the process. There are a lot of choices when it comes to nebulizers, and if this is a treatment your child is going to need to have for a long period of time, having one that she really likes could make a difference.
Get Expert Help with Nebulizer Treatments
When you’re first starting out with nebulizer treatments they can be intimidating. That’s especially true if there are multiple medications that need to be given via nebulizer or your child is not feeling cooperative with the treatments. Getting some help from pediatric home care providers helps you to feel confident that you’re doing the treatments correctly and that your child is getting the medications that she’s supposed to be getting in the right quantities.
Stick to a Schedule for Treatments
Nebulizer treatments are medication, so there are timetables for those treatments. It’s really important to stick to that timetable as closely as possible. This may be something else that pediatric home care providers can help to manage.
Using a nebulizer is something your child may have to get used to for now, but with the right help you can both adapt very quickly to this new form of medication.