The Risks of Cough While Being Pregnant

Pregnancy is a significant and joyful event in every family. Mother wants to keep the future baby, no matter how many days or weeks it is, from all troubles of life. However, you cannot protect the future child from everything. There may come a time when a calm and peaceful life of future mother will be disturbed by any disease. The most common symptom is a nasty cough.

The problem with this symptom is that it can become the manifestation of good dozen different diseases. In most cases, treatment of conventional pharmaceutical preparations becomes impossible due to contraindications.

The Risk of Cough for Mother and Fetus

Coughing is a reflex reaction of the body, appearing when necessary to discharge respiratory tract from foreign objects. This may be sputum, fine dust, some allergens. During coughing, dozens of muscles throughout the body part participate – it’s muscles that support respiratory tract and abdominal muscles. So often it becomes incomprehensible than to treat wet cough during pregnancy if conventional treatment is to stimulate wet cough, and cough becomes dangerous.

For the body of a pregnant woman, coughing is a colossal burden. For fetus – even more severe. A cough is especially dangerous in the first trimester of pregnancy. At this stage, fetus formation and strengthening on the uterine wall take place.

And danger will double – on the one hand, cough is caused by hitting of an infectious agent or an allergen, which in itself is harmful to the baby’s body. On the other hand, such a powerful muscle contraction necessarily affects position and health state of fetus formation in mother’s body.

It is important to understand how and what to treat a cough during pregnancy to prevent complications appearance.
A strong and prolonged cough at different stages of pregnancy can cause fetal and later in the child certain syndromes:

Fetal hypoxia – lack of oxygen coming from mother’s blood to the fetus. As a consequence, there is poor circulation and emerging baby’s organs are not getting enough blood, oxygen supply.
Bleeding – it happens that a pregnant woman’s placenta is low and reduce abdominal wall muscles, arising from coughing, provoking strengthening of vascular tone, blood vessels can burst and can develop severe uterine bleeding that is dangerous for the very fact of early pregnancy.
The reflex increase in uterus tone, as a consequence – miscarriage. This complication threatens a pregnant woman in the first trimester. When the fetus is attached to the uterine wall badly, and coughing is long and strong, to a reflex cough deep muscles of the pelvic organs are connected. Strong uterine contractions can cause miscarriage.

As you can see, even the most ordinary cough can pose a serious danger to the mother’s health, and to the life of the unborn baby. Therefore, at the first sign of a respiratory disease, sore throat, runny nose or a slight cough, a pregnant woman must consult a doctor and with it very carefully select methods of treating cough during pregnancy. It is important to remember that her health does not only belong to her.

The Specifics of Cough Treatment

Every pregnancy has specific features. Also, there is a specificity in each treatment in these periods. You should understand that it is not possible to avoid medical treatment always. Not in all cases and does not perform at all diseases traditional remedies. But every expectant mother should know the drugs and natural methods of how to deal with a cough.

Remember the principle: you can not take what would not reach a newborn child.

Features of the First Trimester

The first trimester is the period when the neural tube is formed, makings of the spine. In the same period, the mother’s body and fetus are the most sensitive to all chemicals.

For this reason, pregnant women in the first trimester are contraindicated almost to all medical intervention. In medicine, it is even allocated a separate group of diseases caused by the influence of drugs – iatrogenic.

Before you treat a cough at the early stages of pregnancy, you must determine its cause. Sometimes it can make the woman herself, but in most cases, you need’s doctors assistance.

A cough may be caused by:

allergies – allergen enters respiratory tract with air, it settles on mucous membrane and causes irritation, which entails cough reflex;
respiratory diseases of viral or bacterial origin;
airways supercooling;
consequences of bad habits;
great excitement and stress.

Once the cause is found, you can start treatment. There are many safe ways to cure a cough during pregnancy. For example, at the beginning of the disease, you can try to eliminate a cough by means of the simplest known methods. One such method is steam inhalation with a small amount of sodium salt.

Alkaline conditions perfectly moisturizing respiratory tract and remove phlegm. It is also important not to forget that body needs to do a sufficient amount of warm liquid. This will help to bring down the temperature and if it helps excrete allergens.

If a cough lasts for long and general well-being does not get better – it is necessary to contact a doctor. After inspection and auscultation of lungs, a doctor will prescribe treatment. Among drugs that are valid for cough treatment in the first trimester, the first place is taken by all herbal medicines.

Althaea Officinalis extract, syrups on the basis of herbs decoction (thoracic collection). In special cases, a doctor may prescribe Libexin. However, independent use of these medicines is unacceptable. In any case, the expert knows best how to treat a cough during pregnancy in the first trimester.

Treatment in the Second Trimester

In the second trimester of pregnancy, the fetus appears a natural defense, which greatly enhances cough treatment. Fetus itself has already more features and is consistent, but still extremely sensitive.

Perhaps the use of antiallergic drugs is possible if a cough has an allergic nature. However, their use is justified only if an adequate assessment of risk-benefit is carried out.

Also, cough can be caused by colds, bronchitis and even pneumonia. In this case, except for cough preparations, there are administered more antiviral and antibacterial drugs.

For cough treatment during the second-trimester pregnancy, it is more comfortable than in the first. It is possible to select the most effective drug available:

syrups plant-based;
syrups containing codeine – used after a doctor’s prescription;
anti-coughing pills

Not less important is the treatment of a cough during pregnancy by traditional remedies – tea with raspberries and honey, warm milk, herbal teas.

But soar legs, take a hot bath or put mustard is not necessary – it can cause bleeding and disruption of pregnancy.

Specificity of the Third Trimester

Features therapy in the third trimester is not much different from the second. Usually, at this stage of fetus growth, formation and establishment of functions of organs have happened. The fetus is able to resist harmful influences from the outside due to the mother’s protective mechanisms. But the question remains: if I have a cough during the third-trimester pregnancy – then can I apply any treatment?

The peculiarity of the period, and why it is considered in isolation, is the aging of the placenta, is a natural process of preparation for the birth. It becomes more permeable to bacteria and viruses. In the earlier stages of the fetus it is not able to catch, but extraneous, foreign substances that the mother can “deliver” the body, it can penetrate through the placenta to the fetus.

The particular period of the third trimester – 37-38 weeks. During this period of pregnancy, the infection can get into the amniotic fluid, which is often swallowed by the fetus.

You can use herbal preparations on the basis of primrose, Althea, plantain, Farfara, and various anti-coughing tablets. You can even take Ambroxol syrup prescribed by a doctor at a therapeutic dose.

Also, traditional medicines are valid, but it is necessary to carefully select herbal ingredients except those that enhance the tone of the uterus. Otherwise, it is possible pathological prematurity development.

Treatment of Dry and Wet Cough

As doctors and advertising on television chorus repeat that there are different reasons for dry and wet cough. A dry cough is the result of irritation or disorders of nervous activity and is not always associated with the presence of mucus in bronchi or upper respiratory tract. Therefore, treatment of dry and wet coughing is absolutely different.

Wondering by means of what to treat a severe cough during pregnancy, you need to assess the risks. Early periods exclude self-medication and require careful and sensitive individual selection of drugs for treatment because as mentioned earlier, there is a risk of miscarriage as a result of strong contractions of abdominal wall muscles. Therefore, treatment of cough medications in pregnancy includes plant medications and sparing traditional medicines.

In the later stages of care it remains the priority, but a wider range of drugs – it is already possible to use a variety of synthetic agents. They perform on the respiratory center in the brain, and the cough goes away quickly.

Wet cough treatment during pregnancy also has its own nuances. First of all, it should be aimed at removing soft sputum.

There are cases when you need a combined treatment when the nature of a cough is too severe and complicated. Canadian Heath&Care Mall offers their customers to consult a specialist before starting application of this or that disorder. Command our service and see how beautiful life may be with our generic medications. We offer you 10-% discount directed to save your money as much as possible. Take a chance and we will ease your choice if necessary.

The Risk of Cough for Mother and Fetus