I recently authored a post on the Cincinnati Children’s blog entitled, Bronchiolitis: A New Parent’s Guide to One of the Most Common Winter Illnesses. Providing reassurance and anticipatory guidance is one of the most important things we can do in the Emergency Department and bronchiolitis is a common illness that can be quite scary. In this post I share a video of one of my sons when he had bronchiolitis at age three months. He has subcostal retractions and a respiratory rate of approximately 80 breaths per minute. I encourage you all to check out at the post and show the video to families. I have used it in these specific ways over the years during countless clinical encounters;
- In babies with congestion and cough, during the first few days of an illness, I used it to explain how their child might look if they develop the characteristic symptoms of bronchiolitis
- In the video my son is working hard to breathe, but he is also pink and active. I use this to provide reassurance.
- In general I recommend that parents seek return care if their infant’s respiratory rate exceeds 70 breaths per minute and feeding has fallen below 50% of usual. The video will give them a sense of what a respiratory Arte >70 looks like in a baby.
You can check out the post at the Link below. Hopefully the information, and the video, which I embedded here will be helpful.
