Natural Remedies to Fighting Off Your Baby’s Flu

Parents in most developing countries are always quick to give children medications like antibiotics immediately the child is down with a flu or cold without doctor’s prescription. This is very wrong.

For this reason, we have compiled some natural home remedies to fight help you fight off baby’s cold or flu. However, if systems persist after few days, please consult your doctor.

Try out the following tips:

• For your 0-6 months’ old baby, give 2 teaspoons of pure orange juice (please discontinue if baby starts purging). Orange juice has a high content of Vitamin C which helps to fight cold and other infectious diseases in the body. For those above 6 months, you can blend together a combination of orange, pineapple, seedless grapes, banana and pink grapefruit to make the perfect syrup. Add orange juice if more liquid is needed.

• Add a little mentholatum to a bowl of hot water, carefully place your baby on one of your laps with the bowl of water under and cover the two of you with a towel. Allow baby to inhale the mentholated hot water for about 15 minutes at a 5-minute interval. For a child who is big enough to sit by herself, please monitor closely.

• Encourage the baby to sleep more. Sleep plays an important role in our immune system. In fact, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine demonstrated that people who got less than seven hours of sleep per night were nearly three times more likely to catch a cold than those who slept for eight hours or more. Once you do have a cold, it will also take longer for it to clear up if you don’t get adequate rest.

• Increase fluid intake. If 6 months and below, breastfeed more often. For babies above 6 months, give clean water or juice regularly, especially fresh juice.

• Ginger is another of natures’ antiviral herbs that you can give to those that are a year and above. It contains nearly a dozen antiviral compounds. Ginger is pain relieving, antiseptic and antioxidant. It is valuable for preventing and treating colds, sore throats and inflammation of mucus membranes. It also reduces pain and fever and has a mild sedative effect that will encourage rest. And it is tasty! (With no lingering odours!)

Indulge yourself too – drink a tea, or soak fresh ginger in hot water, take as a tincture and include it in your food. Ginger is also delicious in a fruit smoothie.

READ ALSO: IMPORTANT: Top 3 Vitamins Your Child Needs and Why

Finally, in adults, some studies have shown that eating a daily cup of low-fat yogurt can reduce your susceptibility to colds by 25%. Researchers think the beneficial bacteria in yogurt may stimulate production of immune system substances that fight disease.