About this perennial plant with truly extraordinary properties in folk medicine have been known for a long time. Thyme or thyme creeping even in ancient times, people called the "Mother of God grass", which cures many diseases.
Thyme is equally useful for both adults and children, and methods of its use have been described since time immemorial. The first mention of thyme can be found in the writings of Avicenna. He described in detail what diseases this plant can expel. Today, many are interested in the question of how thyme helps children cough and at what age is suitable.
Features
As you know, coughs are best handled by preparations containing natural substances in their basis. They do not harm the body, and this is relevant when it comes to treating children.
The healing properties of cough thyme for children are explained by the fact that the chemical composition of thyme, among other elements, also contains essential oil. It contains such substances as thymol, carvacrol, pinene and terpinene, as well as oleanolic, ursolic, thymic, triterpene, quinic and caffeic acids. They make thyme an indispensable tool in the fight against cough, including in the youngest children.
To some extent, according to reviews, thyme from coughing for children can replace even such an undesirable antibiotic intake. And since there are a lot of supporters of such treatment with gifts of nature, then thyme is only gaining popularity.
Application
The herb is successfully used for all types of cough, diseases of the nasopharynx, pneumonia, whooping cough, asthma, bronchial and other diseases. Essential oils help sore throat, relieve attacks of indomitable cough, remove spasms in the bronchi. In folk medicine, there are recommendations to take creeping thyme even with certain forms of tuberculosis.
Thyme is used in the preparation of medicinal baby syrups for colds and coughs. Its bronchodilator properties lead to intensive separation of sputum in children and a decrease in inflammatory processes in the upper respiratory tract. When treating cough in babies under the age of 3 years, thyme should be used only after consulting with your doctor.
Collection rules and place of growth
It is important to choose the right plant product. Thyme is abundant in warm southern countries, on the European continent, and in the Mediterranean region. It grows throughout the Russian Federation, including Crimea, as well as in Ukraine, in the mountains of the Caucasus and in the Central Asian countries.
Its natural habitats are forest edges, steppes and mountain slopes. Among a large number of plant species - creeping thyme, leafleaf, Crimean, flea, Ural, Siberian, Zhiguli - there are none that would not preserve the healing properties, despite their external differences. However, these properties are manifested exclusively with strict observance of the rules for collecting thyme, otherwise the effectiveness of the plant decreases significantly, or even completely irrevocably lost.
In the collection process, in order to properly use the plant for medicinal purposes, you need to pick only green branches - they become so during the flowering period of the grass. Very soon the plant will become woody, therefore, it is necessary to collect it in time at this time or in extreme cases after heavy rains pass over the territory of growth.
When buying thyme in a pharmacy, you also need to pay attention to the freshness of the plant, as evidenced by its bright green color.
Storage
The medicinal value is the stem and flowers of thyme. Thyme cut during flowering is dried spread out, turning over from time to time.
For storage, you can use a vessel with water - in this case, the thyme will be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. You can save the grass and in a dry form, but then the essential oils evaporate and the healing effect is significantly reduced.
Finally, another way is chopping and freezing the plant. In this case, all the useful elements of the thyme will remain intact.
You can store raw materials for two years, but still it is much more reliable to update stocks annually.
To use thyme fresh for treating a child's cough is better and more effective. Then it stores absolutely everything necessary for exposure to a sick organism. Thyme should be poured with hot water, but not boiling.
Plant Based Products
Pharmacologists have long been aware of the healing properties of thyme, and therefore produce various types of medicines on its basis, and pediatricians willingly use it in the treatment of childhood cough. For example, tea for children from coughing "Grandmother's basket" is a mixture of thyme with lemon balm and fennel. The plant is sold dry in a cardboard box of various volumes and in filter bags. In the latter case, it is more convenient to brew them and make up various dosages for a sick child.
Classical medicine for the treatment of symptomatic cough in children recommends the drug Pertussin. It is made from liquid thyme extract. "Pertussin" actively affects the ciliated epithelium of the child’s bronchi and increases the separation of sputum from them.
Also popular is Kodelak, a good remedy for fighting a common cold.
Thyme-based syrup is prescribed from the age of two when coughing, and the effect of its use is achieved after several days of treatment.
German pertussis recipe
German traditional medicine has used and is using thyme in the treatment of whooping cough, a terrible disease that causes great suffering to children.
A simple broth recipe, known since the 16th century, includes one teaspoon of honey, four to five drops of thyme essential oil and 200 milliliters of warm water. The finished product can be used in the treatment of children both for gargling and inward to enhance the process of coughing. This should be done at least three to four times a day.
Cough syrup
It has long been cooked at home. A small bunch of flowering thyme is well washed, chopped and dried. Then they fill it all with water and put it on a slow fire until the water boils in half.
With a dry cough, they take 5 grams of grass per 100 milliliters of hot water, and with a wet one, an average bunch is poured with about half a liter of water and boiled until the liquid remains half as much.
In the cooled and filtered broth add 250-300 grams of honey. It turns out quite a thick syrup. For an adult patient, it is also recommended to add squeezed garlic juice to it, but children do not need to do this.
The resulting mixture must be left in a closed container in a cool place, and with proper storage its healing properties are stored for up to six months.
Give a decoction to the children one teaspoon from two to four times a day. If you give the child a ready-made collection purchased at the pharmacy, just in case you need to carefully look at the dosage of thyme for children from coughing - most often the manufacturer forgets to indicate the dose of the drug for babies.
If the child is less than a year old, then the indicated dose should be reduced by ten times, and if from a year to four years - five times. If you have any contraindications, you should consult your doctor.
Popular recipes
Thyme goes well with other medicinal herbs that complement and enhance its properties. Here are some more cough thyme recipes for children:
- In 200 ml of boiling water, pour a tablespoon of the dried plant, let it brew for an hour, and then strain through a sieve or gauze. How to drink thyme thyme cough - give an infusion of 1 dessert spoon three times a day.
- Take the squeezed juice of freshly cut aloe, mix it with honey and add one tablespoon of thyme infusion - all in equal proportions. The resulting medicine can be given to children in small sips when coughing.
- Three tablespoons of thyme mixed with a spoon of mint and the same amount of oregano, pour boiling water over the mixture and leave to infuse overnight. The resulting product can be given to a child as tea.
- Freshly prepared broth (1 tbsp. L. Raw materials per glass of boiling water) should be left in the container and, having thrown a dense cloth over the child’s head, put him to breathe steam for about a quarter of an hour, and then put him to bed.
Effective tinctures
Helps to defeat a child's cough and collecting thyme with fruits and flowers of hawthorn and blackcurrant in equal proportions. Such a cough thyme infusion is usually prepared for children in a thermos and left for 8 hours.
Remove cough and tincture of thyme with chamomile and plantain flowers. All components are mixed in equal parts and insisted for about an hour. For children under three years old, one teaspoon will be enough 15 minutes before meals, and for older children - one tablespoon.
You can try mixing thyme with rosemary. In this case, for one tablespoon of thyme Ledum, you need to take no more than one teaspoon, since this poisonous plant can cause serious irritation of the nasopharynx mucosa. The mixture must be poured with one glass of water and boiled.
Children can be given half a teaspoon of the drink no more than three times a day.
Finally, with a cough and a cold, you can still make a drink from a mixture of thyme, valerian root, currant leaves, adding mint, St. John's wort and rose hips - all in equal proportions.
Tea
Thyme tea should be left alone. This drink contains a large amount of thymol (essential oil). It is he who very well cleans the upper respiratory tract in children, simultaneously restoring the laryngeal mucosa, healing the resulting microtraumas with a dry cough. So in cases when the child is overwhelmed with attacks, such tea will help.
Many are interested in how old thyme can be for children from coughing. In the absence of contraindications and strict observance of all the rules for preparing a medicinal drink, it is recommended to try to give it to an already one-year-old baby. Unsaturated decoction of thyme from coughing is sometimes recommended for children even at the age of eight months. From the age of three, tea with thyme can be given to a child without any fear for the consequences.
Not everyone knows how to make thyme cough for a child. It’s easy to prepare. It is only necessary to brew several branches of the plant in boiling water. In order to make the drink more pleasant to drink, it is better to add honey to it to taste.
Contraindications
Thyme has many advantages, but there are many contraindications. The main thing is to strictly follow the dosage, especially for young children. In addition, there are a number of diseases in which it is better not to give thyme to children at all:
- arrhythmia;
- cardiosclerosis;
- thyroid disease;
- liver and kidney disease;
- increased acidity of the stomach;
- pathology of the vessels of the brain.
To this should be added a tendency to constipation and individual intolerance to drugs, tinctures and decoctions based on thyme.
Recommendations
Experts, despite the availability of thyme, still advise not to neglect the recommendations of the attending physician. And this is especially true for the treatment of children under the age of three.
The wide possibilities of combining thyme with other medicinal herbs can cause the child to have the opposite effect due to intolerance to one or another type of plant. Thyme should not be taken for more than two weeks, since the substances contained in it, with prolonged exposure to the mucous membranes of the nasopharynx, esophagus and stomach, can cause undesirable consequences.
Another danger is that a medicinal plant has a depressing effect on the thyroid gland, causing its dysfunction.
Conclusion
In general, thyme (creeping thyme) over the centuries has established itself as a reliable, and most importantly, safe medicine for children. This is evidenced by the numerous reviews of parents who used the plant in the treatment of their children, including cough.
Due to its natural origin, this natural product, and with all the variety of drugs offered by the pharmaceutical industry, is very popular among doctors and parents of small patients all over the world.