6.5 month old with chesty cough for weeks

[raevans]

Hi,

just wondering if any one can share any experiences or try and reassure me a little…

DD is 6.5 months old and for nearly 2 months she has had a cold and what appears to be a chesty cough. She has been seen by her GP 2 times who said it is viral and I took her to A&E just over a week ago as she was slightly sucking in around her ribs. They checked her obs and said she could have bronchilitis or mild RSV but that antibiotics were not needed and we should see some improvement in the next few days. Fast forward a week an a half and today she is still coughing badly. She is still wheezy and is coughing so hard trying to get something up that she is choking and nearly making herself sick. She is waking herself at night and her sleep is really affected.

She has also dropped over half of her normal milk feed, although is still eating solids well. I queried this with an OOH gp who was not concerned. She is displaying no temperature and is otherwise still pretty happy in herself.

Im just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this sort of thing with their baby or has experienced similar. Unsure if I should take her back to the Gp again or hold off a bit longer.. don’t want to come accross as being paranoid but also terrified that if I don’t get her seen again something could be really wrong!

any advice would be really appreciated! X

If you're worried about her-take her to the doctor again. Don't be rushed or fobbed off, go through what's been happening as you have here.

Have they taken her oxygen levels? I was told with my youngest that dropping their milk is what to look out for so I would be tempted to go back if they didn’t test her oxygen levels and ask them to.

I would go back.

My 19 month old couldn't shift a cough for 2.5/3 weeks and would wake himself up coughing so much he would throw up. His food intake went down and his sleep was rubbish.

Drs said obs are fine although he does sound a little raspy on one the lungs. They prescribed him a course of antibiotics and he is back to his happy self. Cough is gone, eating has improved and sleep has improved so much.

Hey my DS is having the same problem, did you ever find out what the cause was?

@ByLilacPanda Hi, not a definite cause but GP suspects she caught bronchiolitis which often resulted in future coughs/colds to go to her chest. GP always checked DD over when she got a new chesty cough and she did need antibiotics a few times but more often than not her chest was clear even though it didn’t sound it. GPs often referred to DD as a happy wheezer as she wasn’t affected by it. I was informed that bigger babies (like mine) are more likely to develop a wheeze with coughs/colds. At the time DD seemed constantly unwell for about 5 months and I was in and out the GP with her every other week but thankfully as we’ve moved out of winter she’s not had a chesty cough for a couple of months. Sorry if this isn’t much help, I understand how stressful and worrying it is. I hope your DS gets better soon x