Don't be subjective when your baby wheezes and has a hoarse voice.

When a child shows signs of hoarseness, he needs to be examined immediately (Illustration)

As dangerous as pneumonia

Up to now, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung, Head of the Department of Pediatrics at Bach Mai Hospital, still remembers clearly a case of a 5-year-old boy (Dinh Cong, Hoang Mai, Hanoi) who was brought to the emergency room due to difficulty breathing at the beginning of the year. When he was admitted to the hospital, he had stopped breathing, his whole body was purple, and he was in a coma... even though his family had taken him to the emergency room immediately (just over 10 minutes) when he had an acute difficulty breathing. Immediately, the doctors had to open the trachea, squeeze the balloon, and put him on a ventilator, but the patient was still purple. After consultation, the doctors diagnosed the child with obstructive laryngitis causing apnea and pneumonia.

According to the patient's family, a few days before, the child had shown signs of mild fever, dry cough, and hoarseness. Thinking that the child just had a common sore throat like every other time, the family bought antibiotics for him to take. On the third day of taking the medicine, the child suddenly had a high fever, rapid breathing, and difficulty breathing.

Another case is a 3-year-old boy, the son of Ms. Thu Trang in Phuc La, Ha Dong. After a while of crying for his parents to let him go buy toys, at night, the child became hoarse. Thinking that the "crying" in the morning was the cause, Ms. Trang only gave her child warm honey water to drink. The next morning, the child was still hoarse and had phlegm and wheezing. Because she had to go to work, she decided to take her child to the doctor in the afternoon. Unexpectedly, at noon, the teacher called to report that the child had symptoms such as choking, had phlegm in his throat but could not cough it up. When admitted to the hospital, the child was placed on an inhaler and immediately injected with antibiotics due to acute laryngitis causing laryngeal edema.

“Laryngitis is a fairly common disease in children. Usually, children only have hoarseness, while acute laryngitis, which causes airway obstruction, is less common but extremely dangerous, and emergency treatment is required to save the patient’s life. Due to airway obstruction at the edematous points on the larynx, the child has difficulty breathing. If oxygen is not provided in time, the child may suffer from cerebral hypoxia, affecting the brain and even death,” warned Dr. Dung.

Sharing this view, Dr. Hoang Dinh Ngoc, Deputy Director of the Central Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, said that laryngitis is very dangerous, especially for children because the vocal cords in children are very small. When inflammation causes edema, it “narrows” that small tube, leading to very rapid difficulty breathing, respiratory failure, and cyanosis faster than pneumonia.

Rapid progression

Dr. Ngoc said that the larynx is where sounds are produced and the larynx is the narrowest place in the airway. Because it is the narrowest place, when inflammation occurs, causing laryngeal edema, the vocal cords will be blocked. When the airway is blocked, the patient will have difficulty breathing, gradually lacking oxygen supply to the brain. Depending on the level of stenosis, the manifestation of acute dyspnea is different.

Laryngitis occurs in people who use their voice a lot. In children, the common cause is untreated infection in the nasopharynx. In addition, children who often scream, shout loudly, and cry loudly also cause the vocal cords to tense, which can cause laryngitis, and even laryngeal bleeding.

“The danger is that when a patient first gets laryngitis, they do not have difficulty breathing but only have a hoarse voice, so most people are subjective and do not go to the doctor. In fact, when a patient with acute laryngitis has difficulty breathing, the doctor panics and has to give emergency treatment to the patient very quickly in the hope of saving the patient's life. Because the larynx is narrow and quickly swollen, the patient cannot breathe,” said Dr. Ngoc.

Therefore, children must pay special attention to this disease. At first, the child may only have a common rhinopharyngitis, a runny nose with clear water, then a cloudy nose, cough, hoarseness, or earache. But the disease progresses very quickly, just in the evening the voice is hoarse, then at night the larynx is swollen, making the child unable to sleep and crying.

Therefore, when a child has an upper respiratory tract infection and then a hoarse voice, it is necessary to quickly take the child to the doctor and intervene quickly to prevent unfortunate risks for the child.

Note: This article is for reference only. Please consult your doctor or specialist for further advice.