How to help the heart? Prevention of heart disease in children after infection

Chil­dren after the ill­ness still feel weak for some time. And this is nor­mal, because dur­ing the ill­ness, the baby’s body spent a lot of ener­gy fight­ing infec­tion and virus­es. But what aspects of the child’s behav­ior should be paid atten­tion to so as not to miss the symp­toms of heart dis­ease?

Prevention of heart disease in children after infection

The growth, devel­op­ment of the child and his health depend on whether the baby’s heart devel­ops cor­rect­ly, does it have time to get stronger to cope with stress and is it able to with­stand the attack of virus­es?

A child’s heart is very vul­ner­a­ble, it can suf­fer as a result of many dis­eases: pyelonephri­tis, measles, chick­en­pox, pneu­mo­nia, ton­sil­li­tis or the com­mon cold. The trans­ferred infec­tion is some­times capa­ble of pro­vok­ing the process of inflam­ma­tion of the heart mus­cle — myocardi­tis. Tox­ic sub­stances that are released by virus­es and bac­te­ria cause dam­age to the mus­cle fibers of the child’s myocardi­um. As a result, the child’s heart beats faster or slow­er than nec­es­sary, its cav­i­ties can expand, and most impor­tant­ly, it weak­ens.

If chil­dren have had any infec­tion, you should care­ful­ly mon­i­tor them for a month. Symp­toms of the myocardi­um appear, as a rule, in the third or fourth week after recov­ery, when, it would seem, there is no place to wait for trou­ble. There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to pay atten­tion to how chil­dren tol­er­ate phys­i­cal activ­i­ties? Do they take part in active games? Do they get tired quick­ly? Do they have short­ness of breath after out­door games or run­ning? If there is lethar­gy, fatigue, lack of appetite, bad mood or even swelling of the legs — you should pay atten­tion to such symp­toms and show the baby to a pedi­atric car­di­ol­o­gist.

To facil­i­tate the work of the child’s heart, with­in a month after any infec­tion, it is nec­es­sary to clear­ly mon­i­tor the lev­el of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty of the child.

It is not rec­om­mend­ed to wor­ry him, we are talk­ing about pleas­ant excite­ment (sur­prise is also stress­ful). Putting the baby to sleep, walk­ing with him for a walk and feed­ing should be at a cer­tain time.

You need to check your pulse reg­u­lar­ly. The nor­mal fre­quen­cy of strokes in a new­born child is 150–160, in chil­dren after a year — 120, and after five years — 100 per minute. The pulse rate should be checked at rest: in con­di­tions of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and as a result of unrest, the pulse nat­u­ral­ly increas­es. If the baby’s heart­beat is abnor­mal, you need to show the child to the doc­tor.

Diet in the nutrition of a child after an infection

To improve the health of chil­dren after ill­ness, it is rec­om­mend­ed to fol­low a diet that strength­ens the heart mus­cle. Kids should eat pro­tein foods dai­ly: meat, fish prod­ucts, cot­tage cheese, kefir, yogurt. Fried, spicy, salty and smoked dish­es are exclud­ed from the diet. The food of the child should be five times a day, and the por­tions should be small. Chil­dren often do not want to eat break­fast. And you don’t have to force it! Let him have a lit­tle snack, and at about eleven o’clock you can have break­fast. An impor­tant rule in nutri­tion is not to over­feed at night: this neg­a­tive­ly affects the health of chil­dren. For a weak­ened heart, a hearty din­ner is an ordeal. The last meal should be two hours before bed­time, and before bed­time you can give an apple, a glass of kefir, low-fat yogurt.

In addi­tion, the heart mus­cle needs potas­si­um, as well as vit­a­mins of group B. The lat­ter can be pur­chased at the phar­ma­cy in the form of vit­a­min com­plex­es, and the use of raisins, bananas, dried apri­cots, bananas, figs, prunes, per­sim­mons, as well as baked pota­toes in uni­form, egg­plant, oat­meal, semoli­na, buck­wheat and bar­ley por­ridge.

It is not worth com­plete­ly aban­don­ing fats: such diets adverse­ly affect the health of chil­dren due to a lack of nutri­ents. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to use such a diet dur­ing the peri­od of active growth. Experts say that in the diet of a child of two years of age and old­er, the pro­por­tion of fat con­sumed should not exceed 30% of all dai­ly calo­ries. Fat­ty red sea fish is extreme­ly use­ful in this regard.

It is nec­es­sary to give chil­dren sal­ads made from fresh veg­eta­bles with the addi­tion of veg­etable oil, which con­tains a large amount of polyun­sat­u­rat­ed fat­ty acids that sup­ply ener­gy to the heart mus­cle and play an impor­tant role in the process of cell repair. Thanks to the ben­e­fi­cial qual­i­ties of this food prod­uct, fat-sol­u­ble vit­a­mins A, D and E, so nec­es­sary for a weak­ened heart, are bet­ter absorbed from fresh veg­etable sal­ads and greens.

Healthy drinks and fresh air for cheerfulness and health of children

Is the baby lethar­gic and tired quick­ly? No need to fol­low the exam­ple of some moth­ers who offer their child strong tea or cof­fee for break­fast, try­ing to add vig­or to him. With one cup of cof­fee, the body receives about 200 mg of caf­feine. Even as a med­i­cine, this sub­stance is pre­scribed to chil­dren in dos­es four times small­er than that con­tained in one cup of cof­fee. The action of caf­feine forces the baby’s weak­ened heart to beat at an accel­er­at­ed pace, which has an extreme­ly neg­a­tive effect on his health.

It is advis­able to replace tra­di­tion­al cof­fee with chico­ry. Chil­dren can also be offered tea, but only weak and with milk — it neu­tral­izes the neg­a­tive effects of caf­feine.

But deli­cious cocoa cooked in milk can be safe­ly includ­ed in the child’s diet. Such a drink will only ben­e­fit the chil­dren’s heart — it con­tains mag­ne­sium, which is very nec­es­sary for it. But at the same time, do not for­get that the less sweet­ness in cocoa, the bet­ter — the sug­ar added to the drink pre­vents the absorp­tion of mag­ne­sium and oth­er ben­e­fi­cial sub­stances.

Great for chil­dren to cheer up walks in the fresh air. You do not need to imme­di­ate­ly offer the baby to run or play active games. Dur­ing a short walk dur­ing day­light hours, you can offer him to feed the ducks in the pond, col­lect leaves, or just take a walk in the park. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to send the child to kinder­garten imme­di­ate­ly the next day after dis­charge, it is advis­able to stay at home with him for a cou­ple of days. Although the child is already healthy, his body has not yet ful­ly recov­ered from the ill­ness and, as a rule, it is still dif­fi­cult for him to with­stand the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al stress of a preschool insti­tu­tion.

Prop­er nutri­tion and mod­er­ate phys­i­cal activ­i­ty will help the baby recov­er faster from ill­ness, gain strength for growth and activ­i­ty.