best tips for how to help your child hiccups

Ask your youngster to hold their breath for ten seconds if they are having hiccups.

For younger children, however, a spoonful of sugar or a gentle tug on the tongue may be more effective.

Your child may become nervous if they have the hiccups, so be sure to reassure them and set a good example.

Most people will eventually suffer the typical irritation of hiccups. Due to the possibility of increased gas, they are particularly prevalent in newborns and young children, whose digestive systems are still developing.

Hiccups in children can be upsetting, but they are rarely a cause for alarm, according to Dr. Ilan Shapiro, chief health reporter and medical affairs officer with AltaMed Health Services.

There isn't much study on the most effective ways to manage short-lived hiccup episodes, and there is no surefire technique to stop them, but there are several approaches doctors advise to find comfort.

Here are five methods for treating children's hiccups, along with information on when to take your child to the doctor if they are severe.

1. Request that your kid hold their breath

Your diaphragm, which is the muscle underneath your rib cage, contracts, triggering an automatic response that causes hiccups. Your voice cords close suddenly as a result, producing the distinctive hiccup sound.

The brain unintentionally instructs the diaphragm to contract, which causes these contractions. According to Shapiro, holding your breath causes these impulses to become slower, which may lessen the contractions.

Encourage older children to take the following actions:

1. Exhale and inhale deeply.

2. Ten seconds of air holding

3. Next, inhale again while holding your breath, then stop.

4. Inhale for a third time, followed by a slow mouth exhalation.

2. Give your child a glass of cold water

Holding your breath may also help, but drinking cold water also relieves hiccups. According to Shapiro, drinking water also aids the body in modulating the signals that travel from the brain to the diaphragm, which can lessen contractions.

Try this treatment by giving your child a glass of cold water that is around eight ounces in size and encouraging them to down it as quickly as they can without feeling queasy.

3. Try to stay calm

According to Dr. Jonathan Maynard, a paediatrician with Providence Mission Hospital, anxiety, stress, and enthusiasm have been proved to make hiccups worse. Keeping your composure will help the episode go by more quickly.

The best thing you can do to help your youngster who is stressed out about their hiccups is to maintain your composure. Children, especially when they are worried, pick up on the emotions of the adults around them. By practising emotional control yourself, you can teach your child to do the same.

4. Let your child eat sugar

By stimulating the vagus nerve, which is involved in signal transmission from the brain to the diaphragm, by placing a spoonful of sugar on the tongue and letting it dissolve, one may be able to get rid of hiccups.

It might be simpler to put the sugar under a young child's tongue so that it dissolves more gradually than if they were to swallow it.

5. Gently tug on your kid's tongue.

Similar to eating sugar, pulling on the tongue is supposed to help with hiccups by triggering the vagus nerve and reducing diaphragm spasms.

Open your child's mouth wide and gently tug on the tongue tip a few times using clean fingertips.

When to see a doctor

According to Shapiro, hiccups typically go away on their own without the need for medical attention. Consult a doctor if your child's hiccups last more than 48 hours or prevent them from breathing, sleeping, or eating normally.

Rarely, persistent hiccups may be a symptom of one of the following conditions:

diseases of the central nervous system, such as encephalitis and meningitis

stomach acid reflux

Laryngitis

Pneumonia

Diaphragmatic pleurisy

Blood tests and radiographic imaging, which enables medical professionals to see the inside structures of the body, may be part of an evaluation, according to Shapiro.

Insider's takeaway

Children's hiccups can be inconvenient and upsetting, but they are typically transient and rarely cause for alarm.

There are certain techniques you can try to make your child feel better, but there are no surefire home treatments to get rid of hiccups. They may be instructed to hold their breath, be given cold water to drink, have sugar dissolve on their tongue, or have the tip of their tongue gently pulled.