What kind of foods to be given to your babies when they have cough?

Most of my patients and family members keep asking me regarding this. Parents gets confused to choose the right food for their baby and also worry that their child is not consuming enough quantity of food during cough.

Well, need not to be panic, this might give you some idea to tackle this situation next time.

There are few reasons why cough stays longer in infants.

Firstly, it’s because of age- Ayurveda categorizes life into 3 epochs. Childhood, Adulthood and old age. Physiologically, during childhood Kapha dosha (Earth +water elements) is predominant. Kapha is having cold, wet,heavy ,soft but thick in nature .

As Cough mucus has the similar nature like cold, wet and thick, this would stay longer in the body.

Secondly, though nature is doing its job, your baby doesn’t quite know how to spew forth the phlegm. It stays in the lungs for more time. This aggravates the condition leading to stressful coughing and the parent’s stress level as well!

So to comfort them one should choose the food,spices and herbs which are of opposite qualities – warm ,Dry and Light in attributes. A natural way to loosening the mucus for expulsion.

Here are few recommended foods.

* Fruit juices rich in vitamin C such as fresh lemon juice,sweet lime , orange, even carrot juice can be given to fight against bacteria. They should be given at room temperature.

*Warm healing soups and gruels like porridge are recommended which are easy to digest.

Soup: stock of mixed vegetables. While you boil the broth add these herbs- ginger , garlic , onions and lemongrass while boiling the stock, when it’s almost done you can add herbal leaves to that.

Ginger: 3-4 slices, Garlic:1-2 pieces , Onion:3-4slice of medium size onion, Basil leaves: 5-10, Lemon grass:1 inch stem, Ajwain-1/2 tsp, Mint 4-5 leaves, black pepper kernels-1-2 , fennel and cumin seeds are optional

Lastly add salt for taste.

These are added to 4 cups of water and boiled until it remains 2 cups.

Giving such a soup 3-4 times a day accelerates healing process miraculously.

Gruels: plain rice porridge or rice and dal porridge with few smashed vegetables like carrot ,porridge prepared out of millets are recommended. You can temper these with grounded black pepper and salt, which helps drying up the mucus by its heating potency.

One can even add ginger,onion, some herbal leaves to this.

If your child is bored of this taste, smash a carrot add honey and bit cinnamon power to it and feed.

Avoid giving packaged, processed, fermented or frozen foods if you want to speed up the healing process.

Warm water should be given frequently to drink, this will help move the mucus down the throat to be eliminated via the digestive system.

For infants only on milk: Take 1/2 tsp of fennel, cardamom and 1-2 cloves. crush them and steep in water of about 150ml. Boil it till it becomes half of original quantity. Add this decoction to 150ml of milk and stir well.

For older children one can add turmeric powder and garlic boil it will dilute milk ( In Ayurveda we call it as Lasura ksheera paaka)

Next time your child gets cough be relaxed and follow these .

To know about herbal remedies

Read my other blog

‘Few herbal remedies to comfort your child during cough’