Tracheomalacia

I took baby F to the pediatrician last Thursday morning because of a bark-type cough that he has had since he was 2 months old. It started right before Thanksgiving actually. He's had no other symptoms with it so I ruled out croup early on. I had asked the doc about this cough at his last appointment after they were finally able to hear it. (He doesn't cough that often so it's hard to hear it sometimes.) The nurse practitioner suggested coming back at 5 months and possibly doing x-rays of his throat if he still had the cough. I knew he would still have it so I decided to go ahead and go back to see them. At first the doc thought he might be aspirating on his spit up and suggested trying the Prevacid they had prescribed at his 4 month check up. If that didn't work, then they were going to suggest a barium swallow to see where the liquid was going and to see if it was indeed going in his lungs. But thankfully she was able to hear him cough when he started crying during the appointment. Once she heard it, she suggested something different and she said it sounded like laryngo tracheomalacia which is one of the things the nurse practitioner had mentioned as a possibility at his 4 month appointmnet. It is basically a "floppy airway". She said it will get worse around 6-8 months and should be gone by the time he turns 1. There's no medication to treat it and she didn't see any need for any invasive procedures. I was very relieved to hear this as I had been going through all kind of reasons for this cough in my head and they were all heart-breaking diagnoses. I am so thankful it was nothing more serious than this. I've also done a little reading online...not too much though as I know I can get really freaked out. But I've read that babies who have this also tend to have reflux.
In the meantime, he will continue to cough and I am sure other people will look at me funny and think to themselves "Why does that mother have that poor, sick child out in public?"