According to a recently concluded medical review, there is no truth in the long-believed myth of humid air’s ability to relieve croup patients from noisy croup breathing and barking cough.
Michael Moore, a family doctor at Three Swans Surgery in Salisbury, England, remarked that it is very common for croup patients’ families to get them have water or stay near a hot bath in room corners but these acts are not worth the efforts.
It was further remarked that studies do not highlighted any benefits resulting from humid air or use of moisturized air in an emergency department but there may be a distant possibility about some benefits of humidified air inhalation and further studies on this subject in community settings can help in finding the real and complete truth.
From News-Medical.Net:
Croup is a set of symptoms that causes swelling in the upper part of the airway and affects the voice box. The condition usually is caused by a viral infection. Young children are especially susceptible to croup because the infants and toddlers have narrower airways than older children and adults.
Physicians rate the severity of croup by noting signs of labored breathing and poor oxygen intake. The croup score and health outcomes for the children treated with moist air were not significantly different than the scores for the patients who received no treatment, the review found.
“I think that probably the successes that were attributed to humidity in the past were due to the calming effect of the parent believing that they were doing something, the child taking deeper breaths, the child getting over the spasmodic element of the croup, and then just getting better,” said Dennis Scolnik, an emergency room pediatrician at The Hospital for Sick Children/Toronto in Ontario, Canada.
Scolnik said that some calming techniques may be tried at homes to provide relief to a patient with mild croup. It is important to note here that steroids are often prescribed for reducing vocal chord inflammation and physicians make use of nebulized (given by mist) adrenaline for moderately severe croup for relieving a patient from symptoms.
