Kids, Colds and Honey
There are several different bugs going around my daughter’s school right now. They range from your typical colds all the way to a stomach virus, add in some strep throats and fevers and it seems everybody has something. I got lucky with a stomach virus that seems to be lasting way more than 24 hours. My daughter caught the cold with some major coughing.
My mom, my daughter and I all seem to have that in common. We catch a cold and we cough for weeks. Needless to say, getting a good night’s sleep while constantly coughing can be a little tough – I’m sure you already know this. Once my daughter turned two, over the counter cough medicine was what her pediatrician recommended – following the dose recommendations carefully and exactly of course. **WARNING- It is now recommended that cough medicine NOT be given to children under 4 and some doctors prefer that age to be 6**.
Getting my daughter to take cough medicine was almost next to impossible. It always involved major crying which of course made her stuffier and made the coughing even worse. So several years ago when my daughter started coughing horribly with a cold, I dreaded the upcoming bedtime cough medicine battle. I decided to see what kind of home remedies I could find. I found various home remedies and they all had one thing in common – honey.
**In case you skim while reading I didn’t want you to miss this –Another Warning – Never ever give a child under 1 honey. It can be deadly because infants don’t have the stomach acid necessary to kill the bacterial spores and the honey will cause infant botulism**
Okay now that I’ve given you the warning, I can continue on with my honey story and it’s happy ending. The honey worked!! I couldn’t believe the first time we tried it and we had a night of no coughing. The recommended dosage is a ½ tsp in a single dose 30 minutes before bed for kids 2 to 5, a full tsp for kids 6 to 11, and two teaspoons for kids 12 to 18.
Dark honey is supposed to work significantly better at stopping coughs than the light honey. In addition, research done by the University of Illinois has found that dark honey has 20x more antioxidants than light honey, meaning more illness-fighting agents. For whatever reason, I have not been able to locate any dark honey in my area so we are using the light honey. In either case, this give a thumbs up to honey to helping ease kid’s (over 1) coughs.
MiracleMunchkins.com
Health | munchkins mom | January 29, 2010
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By Jeff Chamberlain, January 29, 2010 @ 7:48 pm
I came by your blog when doing a search on children’s cough. A Penn State Study showed that Buckwheat Honey was better then Dextromethorphan for kids night time cough. It is the same type of honey that University of Illinois used in their study.
Because of this and the safty concerns regarding children’s cough meds, my wife and I started a company called Honey Don’t Cough, where we package buckwheat honey in single dose packets and put it on pharmacy shelves. You can check it out at http://www.honeydontcough.com and buy it at Target.com
Jeff Chamberlain MD
Family Doctor
CEO Honey Don’t Cough