Symptoms of pneumonia in children

Currently, some newborns will show symptoms of pneumonia after birth and suffer from the harm caused by neonatal pneumonia. Neonatal pneumonia is a common lung disease, but the impact is very serious for weak newborns. Next, the editor will introduce the symptoms of neonatal pneumonia.

The manifestations of neonatal pneumonia are not exactly the same as those of pneumonia in older children. Most of them are atypical, and a few have coughs, but the body temperature may not rise. The main symptoms are purple around the mouth, foam at the mouth, dyspnea, listlessness, less crying, no crying, and refusal to feed. Sometimes they are just "cold" symptoms, such as nasal congestion and choking on milk. However, if you observe carefully, you will find that the child's breathing is very fast (greater than 45 times/minute, normally 40 to 44 times/minute), and may even be accompanied by the three-depression sign (the depression of the upper sternal fossa, intercostal space and subxiphoid process during inspiration is called the three-depression sign) and other manifestations of dyspnea.

Parents can count the baby's breathing for 1 minute when the baby is quiet; do not count the baby's breathing after feeding, bathing, defecation, or crying. Pneumonia caused by prenatal infection usually occurs within 3 to 7 days after birth. Symptoms are often atypical, and the younger the gestational age, the more atypical the symptoms. About half of the babies have normal body temperature, while the rest have unstable body temperature. Severely ill or premature babies often do not have a high body temperature.

Symptoms are mostly non-characteristic manifestations such as refusal to eat, drowsiness or irritability, poor complexion, lack of weight gain, and no cough. Soon, shortness of breath, nasal movement, groaning, soft tissue depression during inspiration, and increased heart rate will gradually appear. Premature infants are prone to apnea. Pulmonary signs include increased or decreased breath sounds, accompanied by dry or wet sounds, but may also be completely negative. Although chlamydial infection occurs before birth, the onset of pneumonia is 3 to 12 weeks after birth. Some children have had chlamydial conjunctivitis 5 to 14 days after birth (see conjunctivitis). The pathogen can gradually spread downward from the nasolacrimal duct, but some children do not have conjunctivitis but may also develop pneumonia.

Chlamydia pneumonia has a slow onset, with nasal congestion and cough first, and breathing gradually speeds up. Generally, there is no fever, and there are moist sounds in the lungs. If the lesion invades the bronchioles, wheezing will occur. The whole course of the disease can last for several weeks. The blood count of white blood cells is sometimes eosinophilic. Various pneumonias that occur after birth have a late onset and more typical symptoms, including nasal congestion, cough, shortness of breath, and fever in full-term infants, but the body temperature may also be normal, and the body temperature of premature infants may not rise. Moist sounds of varying thickness can be heard in the lungs. When complicated with empyema or pyopneumothorax, the breath sounds are reduced, and the percussion is dull or the recollection is enhanced. Pneumonia caused by different pathogens has some characteristics.

The above are the symptoms after neonatal pneumonia occurs. Neonatal pneumonia affects the lung health of many newborns. Therefore, friends cannot underestimate the harm of this disease. They must pay attention to the hygiene of the child’s room, and be careful not to smoke around the newborn. They must pay more attention to their physical condition.