Why are children more often infected than adults?

2.30 a.m. The middle of the night. Your little child is coughing, and she keeps coughing for hours. She had just managed to get rid of one terrible cold, the third this year. Now it seems she has got another. You sit by her bed listening to her exhausting cough. What should you do?

The fact is that several infections a year are absolutely typical for children. A child's immune system is not yet flexible enough to fight off so many different types of pathogenic germs. Thus, cough finds fertile ground. A child develops increasing power of resistance as he or she grows older.

That is why a lot of little infections don't harm your child and are thus not necessarily a reason to worry. In fact, they are good training for the young immune system. Every time your child recovers again, her or his immune system gets stronger.

But there are still some symptoms that you should pay attention to. A child's cough can mean many different things. Sometimes it is harmless, sometimes alarming and sometimes downright dangerous. The next section provides you with information about different types of cough that are typical of childhood. We will also give you some tips about how to help your child get healthy again.