Do I need antibiotics for my baby?

Discussion of the problem - whether or not antibiotics are needed for a child - has recently become particularly relevant, as the number of diseases that show the use of these medicines is increasing every day. Nevertheless, the long-term practice of using antibacterial and antimicrobial agents has proved that these medicines are not a panacea and have an impact both on the patient's organism and on the causative agents of infectious diseases. It must be remembered that it is antibiotics that are the most frequent cause of allergic reactions of varying severity, the treatment of which may require more effort than the treatment of the main pathological process.

When antibiotics are needed in pediatric practice

Very often antibiotics for a child are used without appropriate medical appointment - parents or other relatives of the child decide that consultation of a pediatrician or a doctor of another specialty is not needed. In doing so, people forget that antibiotic therapy is indicated only if it is proved that the cause of the disease is a microorganism that is really sensitive to the drug or there is a risk of developing infectious microbial complications in the defeat of the immune system.

A vivid example of such "wrong" and unjustified therapy is antibiotics for bronchitis in children. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the cause of acute bronchitis, which develops as one of the manifestations of acute respiratory disease or ARVI, is precisely the viruses. These pathogens of infection are basically insensitive to antibacterial agents, because they are intracellular parasites that cause disease only when inserted into intracellular structures (DNA and RNA). The antibiotic can not exert its effect on the virus, whereas the risk of developing side effects of drug therapy increases many times.

In addition, there are diseases in which antibiotics for the child must be prescribed without fail - for example, tonsillitis and tonsillitis. The cause of the development of these pathological conditions is most often pathogenic microorganisms from the cocci group. Lack of effective, age-matched antibiotic therapy for these diseases can provoke the development of early and long-term complications, the most dangerous of which are rheumatism and endocarditis, myocarditis, polyarthritis, damage to the nervous system and kidney tissue.

How to correctly prescribe and take antibiotics

In any case, antibiotics for a child should be prescribed only by a qualified physician after a personal examination of a small patient, and ideally - after laboratory tests and additional studies. Only in this case there is a certainty that the doctor will not miss those diseases in which antibiotic therapy is mandatory, and those conditions when these drugs are useless.

In addition, the specialist should evaluate all the risks and benefits of such treatment - even antibiotics for breastfeeding may be necessary drugs. In this case, the doctor will be able to choose a drug in which it is permissible to continue natural feeding or advise what it is possible to feed the baby during a forced break in feeding. Rejection of reasonable treatment can cause irreparable harm to the mother's health, while unreasonable use of an antibiotic is harmful for the infant.

In addition, antibiotics for the child should be prescribed, if possible, only after a sample for individual tolerability of the selected drug and determining the sensitivity to this agent of the causative agent of the disease. Treatment should be carried out under the supervision of a doctor and control of laboratory indicators, with observance of age-related dosage and the necessary duration of antibiotic therapy.