When Natalie Romero’s daughter was sick with a stuffy nose, fever and a cough, she brought her to the emergency department?while second guessing herself the whole time. ?Her fever wasn?t going away, and she was starting to have a harder time breathing, but at the same time, I worried that she wasn?t sick enough to take her to the ER,? she says. (This was before the pandemic.)
As it turns out, her child was, in fact, sick enough to go. She was diagnosed with a chest infection and the doctor said Romero should have brought her in even sooner. He also showed her how to identify future serious breathing issues by looking for flaring around the nostrils or the muscles sucking in below the ribs.
Most parents have had that should-I-or-shouldn?t-I moment of trying to figure out when to go to the ER. When it?s hard to decide, provincial hotlines like 811 or Telehealth can help. And, as Romero found out, knowing the warning signs that your kid is in serious distress is key. Here are nine red flags that it?s time to head to the hospital. 1. They’re having trouble breathing
It can be hard to tell the difference between a kid who has a bad cough from a cold or the flu and one who?s truly struggling to breathe.
Kirstin Weerdenburg, a paediatric emergency doctor at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, recommends taking your kid?s shirt off and watching their chest. ?Look at their belly muscles, the spaces between their ribs, and around their collarbone,? she says. ?Normally when ...