If your child is advised admission to a hospital, parents are full of anxiety. There is a lot of bother in hospital admissions for a family. The normal family life is disrupted with the mother having to stay in the hospital with the child and the father having to be constantly on the run going here and there to fetch medicines, food, clothes etc. Uppermost anxiety in the parents’ mind is about the child’s condition. Sometimes the child is put on an intravenous line and the child may take time to become accustomed to it.
During this time he may yell and want the i.v. line to be pulled out or will try to pull it out himself. The parents have to catch hold of the child and soothe him. The first day in the hospital is often the hardest and after that you also start becoming accustomed to it. The above are all part and parcel of hospitalization, which cannot be avoided or can be avoided only to some extent, but cannot be completely eliminated.
During the hospital stay, try to be relaxed and let the doctors and the nurses do their job. They are professionals trained in this field and are accustomed to dealing with such cases many times. So when an intravenous line is being put for the child, doesn’t stand near the medical personnel, craning your neck to see how everything is going. It is better to let the medical personnel be alone with your child and complete whatever procedure is deemed necessary in the interests of the child.
Of course there is no harm in your standing nearby (primarily to comfort and soothe the baby by the presence of a familiar face). Remember some children may start behaving just the opposite i.e. when the mother is present, they will kick up a row, while if the mother is not there, they are afraid enough to keep quiet and tolerate the procedure without much fuss. But mothers who cannot stand the sight of even a single prick and whose anxiety level increases in direct proportion to the child’s crying should stay away.
Running minute to minute to the nurse with some or the other complaint not only makes the nurse harried but you also start getting paranoid and thinking how long you will be able to bear it. So try to be relaxed and listen to the reassurances from the medical personnel like the nurses and the doctors without doubting them much.
When the doctor comes for a visit, it is better to jot down whatever you want to ask on a paper so that you don’t miss out on anything. It many times happens that after the doctor’s visit is over, you realize that you have forgotten to ask him something that was bothering you throughout the day. The same applies when you take your child for a visit to the doctor in his clinic. Get reassurances from the doctor about the condition of your child. This will make you relaxed that there is nothing serious with the child. You can also ask the doctor whether the disease can take a serious course or become worse.
Keeping patience is very important. You cannot and should not expect that as soon as you admit the child in the hospital, he will have a magic cure in a matter of few hours. If the child is having diarrhoea along with dehydration, necessitating i.v. fluids, it is very stressful for the parents. The child will evacuate frequently and may soil your clothes, bed sheets etc. which may be quite a nuisance.
But remember that though it is a nuisance, it is nothing more than that in the sense that by and large, diarrhoea is a benign disease from which the vast majority of children recover very well. It is only a matter of time. Some children may become better in 2 days; others may even take 5-7 days for the diarrhoea to stop. Once the child is off the i.v. drip and not vomiting, you can ask the doctor whether you can take the child home. Some parents prefer to take the child home and even get periodic injections from their home setting.
Same thing holds true for other diseases also. By and large diseases have got an excellent prognosis in children, particularly the common ones like respiratory infections, diarrhoeas, vomiting, fever etc. which are the diseases that your child is most likely to suffer from. They have got more of a nuisance value (e.g. the child is having a troublesome cough, gets fever every 4 hours etc.) without causing any serious harm or ill effects to the child. Of course it is a testing time for parents. As mentioned above all these are trifling matters and more of a nuisance rather than a reason for serious concern.
If your child is unfortunately serious, then your doctor will explain to you the condition of the child. At that moment you have to decide where you should get your child treated. Is there a better hospital nearby with good facilities to handle such type of serious condition? You can consult your doctor who will surely guide in your decision making. It is better to get treatment for serious diseases like coma, head injury etc. at a centre with facilities to deal competently with them.