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Posts Tagged "Hygiene"

20Sep2022

Protect Your Child During Cold and Flu Season With These Tips

Cold and flu season is just around the corner, and you want to keep your child as safe from these illnesses as possible. While it seems impossible to fully avoid the cold or flu, it is still important to take the steps to minimize your child’s risk of catching either illness. You can protect your child during cold and flu season with these tips.

Maintain Your Child’s Health

First, you want to ensure your child is leading a healthy lifestyle. Your child needs a well-balanced diet to get the nutrients they need to strengthen their immune system. You can also boost their immune system by making sure they get regular exercise and nine to 14 hours of sleep each night.

Stay On Top Of The Flu Vaccine

If your child is six months or older, talk to their pediatrician about the flu vaccine. This vaccine can help them build up immunity to fight off the flu virus. It should be noted that your child may still catch a cold or another strain of the flu, so it is important to take other precautions as well.

Make Hand-Washing A Habit

It is easy to spread germs when children touch everything, so you need to make hand-washing a habit for your child. They should especially wash their hands after touching shared items and playground equipment. You also want to ensure they wash their hands before each meal. If they cannot get to a sink, encourage them to use hand sanitizer or hand wipes until they can wash their hands.

Teach Your Children Good Hygiene

Now is the time to ensure your child knows how to practice good hygiene. Teach them to sneeze or cough into their sleeve to prevent the spread of germs. This way, your child is doing their part to keep the cold and flu at bay. The more people who cover when coughing or sneezing, the less likely they are to spread germs to others.

Keep Them Home When Sick

If your child does become sick, be sure to keep them home from school and other activities. You do not want your child to spread their cold or flu to others. In addition, you do not want to risk them feeling worse after they get home. Once again, the risk of germs spreading lowers when everyone takes precautions when they are sick.

Whether your child is under the weather or you need to schedule a flu vaccine, Kids 1st Pediatrics offers the care your child needs. You can schedule an appointment at kids1stpediatrics.net.

Pediatrics
26Aug2022

Keep Your Child Safe From Germs While Visiting The Pediatrician

It is no secret that the pediatrician’s office is full of germs. After all, many of their patients are feeling under the weather. You may be worried about your child catching a cold, the flu, or other viruses while playing in the waiting room. Luckily, you can keep your child safe from germs while visiting the pediatrician with these tips.

Limit What They Touch

Start by putting a limit on what your child can touch while in the waiting room. For example, they should only touch the chair they are sitting in as they wait for the pediatrician. In addition, you want to give them a limit on how many toys and books they can touch, especially if other children were using these items just several minutes ago.

Supply Your Own Entertainment

One way to limit what your child touches in the waiting room is to supply the entertainment yourself. You can allow them to bring their favorite toy or book from home, or you can keep them busy with a tablet and headphones. This way, you know who has been touching the items your child is using in such a high-traffic area.

Encourage Hand Washing

It is important to encourage your child to wash their hands once it is their turn to see the pediatrician. You can ask their pediatrician about stopping by the restroom or using the sink in their office. Another option is to have your child wash their hands after the appointment altogether. This keeps your child from contacting and spreading germs.

Bring Hand Wipes

It never hurts to bring hand wipes for your child to use after they have finished using the items in the waiting room. You may even be able to use the wipes on the items beforehand, but it is best to ask the receptionist before wiping down the items. Hand wipes are also convenient for sanitizing after the appointment altogether, especially if you forget to have your child wash their hands.

Ensure The Staff Is Clean

There is nothing wrong with politely asking their nurse and pediatrician if they have washed their hands before they examine your child. They understand that a pediatrician’s office is a high-traffic area, especially when they have a day full of appointments. Luckily, many nurses and pediatricians also wear gloves as an extra layer of protection.

If it is time to schedule your child’s annual visit to the pediatrician, consider Kids 1st Pediatrics. You can easily schedule an appointment online by visiting kids1stpediatrics.net.

Pediatrics
13Dec2021

The Holidays and Your Child’s Health

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many parents are thinking about the best ways to keep their kids healthy. Given that many families will be having group gatherings for the first time in over a year, it’s always wise to step back and think about the ways that you can help to ensure that your child stays safe over the holidays.

Good Habits for Staying Healthy

The best place to start is, of course, always going to be with the basics. Make sure that you’re practicing the same kind of basic hygiene practices that you practiced with your child before the pandemic. That means washing hands, stepping back from people who are actively sneezing or coughing, and keeping hands off of objects like doorknobs and railings. It’s also a good idea to make sure that your child doesn’t put anything in their mouth that doesn’t belong to them.

Staying healthy this year may also mean making choices about where you go and when. Always keep the health of your child and family in mind before you go to gatherings, and feel free to stay back if you know that someone at your party isn’t feeling well. The last thing you need is to exacerbate existing problems, and almost everyone around you will appreciate your willingness to stay home to keep others well.

Finally, make sure that you’re keeping up with your child’s general health. Making sure that they can get plenty of rest and that they stay hydrated can play a massive role in making sure that their immune system stays strong. This isn’t going to be enough to fight off every contagious illness, of course, but your child’s body really will function better if they are getting everything that they need.

There’s no perfect way to keep holiday illnesses away, but you can take steps to keep your child a bit healthier. Make sure that you’re practicing good hygiene, that you avoid places where people are already sick, and that you keep your child to a good rest and hydration routine. If nothing else, doing so gives your child a better chance to stay well.

Pediatrics
12Jun2020

Helping Children Understand Masks

The world may seem like a whole new place to your child. Wearing a face mask outside your home may either seem like an exciting adventure or a scary circumstance depending on how you approach this conversation with your child and depending on your child’s temperament.

  • First, consider the age of your child before having this conversation. If you have very young children, you should approach this using simplistic language, answering their questions, and remaining calm at all times. Be careful of offering too many details as this may only scare them. Simply tell them that masks can help keep them from getting sick. If you are speaking to older children, you can also focus on other steps they can take to keep their germs to themselves and to stay away from other germs when they are out.
  • Second, come up with a plan to get your child to wear the mask when going out in public. For younger children, it may be best to approach this as you would a game. Practice wearing the mask at home so that your child knows what it will feel like before leaving home. You could also have a favorite stuffed animal wear a mask. Children may also want to know what they look like while wearing the mask. You can encourage them to look at themselves in the mirror or take a selfie. Some children like the idea of looking like a favorite superhero who also wears a mask.
  • Third, find a way to make the mask-wearing experience pleasurable. You could consider offering a small reward if your child is particularly hesitant. However, you will have to make the exact requirements for earning the reward clear before leaving home. Another option would be decorating the mask using markers or stickers. No matter how your child reacts to the mask, be sure to be accepting of his emotions.

Face masks are currently recommended for most children over the age of 2 when going out in public. If you have concerns about your child wearing a mask or want to know more about how you can keep your child safe and healthy during this continuing pandemic, contact Kid’s 1st Pediatrics today. We can help you understand what our clinic is doing to address this crisis, schedule an appointment for your child, or give you advice over the telephone.

Pediatrics
23May2020

Teaching Children About Germs

When your children were infants, they loved to put everything in their mouths and had no qualms about rubbing their eyes every chance they got. Now that they are older, they may still have some of these same bad habits and may frequently come back from school with nasty colds or stomach viruses. By teaching your children about germs, they can understand better how bacteria and viruses are transferred from person to person and can become better stewards of their own health.

Your first inclination may be to sit down and have a talk with your child. However, most children become quickly bored by lengthy discussions. If they have nothing to look at during the discussion, the words you say are highly unlikely to make their way into your children’s memories. Instead, you need to teach them about germs by using something that sticks out to them and engages their senses.

Utilizing the Tools of Technology

One of the easiest options is to show your children a video about germs. There are plenty of free videos about this subject online today. Plus, nearly all children love watching videos. A video can help get across the message that germs are quite powerful even though they are unseen. To ensure that the message of the video has been made clear to your children, ask them to repeat back to you what they were taught.

While engaging one of the senses through watching a video can be powerful, an even more powerful teaching option is to engage at least two of the senses simultaneously through a demonstration. Find something that your children can not only watch but also test out with their hands. One example is putting glitter on your children’s hands and having them watch how the glitter gets on everything they touch.

As your children hear you talk to them about germs while watching you demonstrate germ transfer and getting to test it out for themselves, these new concepts will make their way more fully into their conscious thoughts. 
Although it will not happen overnight, your children will gradually start making smarter decisions about touching their faces, washing their hands frequently, and practicing good hygiene around others when they are ill. Until then, you do not have to feel bad about continuing to remind your children to cover their mouths when coughing or to keep their hands off their faces.

Pediatrics
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