Winter children's health care knowledge

With the arrival of the Xiaoxue and Daxue solar terms, the cold winter has arrived as scheduled. The winter of 2023 is another busy season for pediatrics. First, there was mycoplasma infection, and recently there have been influenza viruses, adenoviruses, respiratory syncytial viruses, etc. The temperature is low and dry. For children with low resistance and poor immunity, they will be targeted by winter diseases if they are not careful. Therefore, it is particularly important to strengthen winter preventive health care and let children spend the whole winter healthy and happy.

1. Diet

Children have tender spleens and stomachs. While ensuring that they eat three meals a day on time, they should avoid eating raw or cold food, and eat less greasy, fried, and puffed food that is difficult to digest. After a cold or fever, they should pay more attention to eating light liquid food. The weather is cold in winter, and the energy and calories needed by children also increase accordingly. Therefore, they should add some high-calorie, hot foods, such as meat, fish, poultry, milk, beans, etc. Eat more vegetables and fruits, and take appropriate vitamin supplements.

2. Clothing

Add clothes in time according to the temperature. Clothes that have not been worn for a long time should be washed and aired before wearing to eliminate allergic factors and avoid skin allergies, erythema, rashes, etc. Clothes should not be too tight. Loose and comfortable cotton sportswear is appropriate. Reject adult thinking. Children have a faster metabolism than adults and are more active than adults. Especially when exercising, be careful not to wear too thick or too bloated clothes. On the one hand, it hinders physical exercise and increases the burden on the body. On the other hand, avoid excessive sweating, which makes it easier to catch a cold. To judge whether the thickness of the child's clothes is appropriate, you can touch the back of the child's neck. If it feels warm, it means the clothes are appropriate. If the back of the neck is cold, it means that the clothes are not enough. If the back of the neck sweats, it means that the clothes are too much.

3. Skin care

The weather is dry in winter, and children's skin is prone to dryness, dehydration, cracking and itching. Parents can prepare a soft towel to wipe it gently, and apply children's special cream or lotion to the child's face and body in time after washing the face and bathing. This can effectively moisturize, lock in moisture moderately, and relieve dryness.

IV. Environmental aspects

In clear weather, you can open the windows twice a day, morning and evening, for about 30 minutes each time, to ensure indoor air circulation and reduce the breeding of indoor bacteria and viruses. If there are many people in your home who have caught a cold or fever recently, you can also use disinfectants or ultraviolet light to disinfect. Keep the indoor humidity appropriate. In winter, children will feel dry throats and cough easily after getting up. After excluding reasons such as illness, it is likely caused by low indoor humidity. Therefore, the room needs to be properly humidified in winter, especially after heating. It is recommended that children drink more water, use a humidifier or place a basin of water indoors.

5. Sports

In weather with good air quality, you can choose to have outdoor activities with your children when the sun is bright and the wind is light. Appropriate outdoor exercise is beneficial to improving immunity and training children's perseverance. When you can't go out, you can choose appropriate indoor sports, such as table tennis, indoor basketball, roller skating, dancing, etc.

6. Disease prevention

1. Influenza is one of the common epidemics in winter. It is an acute respiratory infectious disease caused by influenza virus. The incubation period is usually 1 to 7 days. It is most contagious 2 to 3 days after onset and can last up to 1 to 2 weeks. The main symptoms are sudden onset, chills and high fever, body temperature can reach 39 to 40°C, fatigue, headache, body muscle aches, loss of appetite, accompanied by sore throat, cough, nasal congestion, and runny nose. Some people have symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, and diarrhea. It can be transmitted through droplets in the air, contact with nasal secretions of infected people, or contact with contaminated objects. It is recommended to take children to crowded public places and places where patients are concentrated. If there are sick adults at home, try to avoid close contact and wear masks. Getting a flu vaccine according to the doctor's advice can effectively prevent influenza.

2. Diarrhea is also a common disease in children in winter. Rotavirus infection is common, with a peak period from October to December, and it is highly contagious. The main symptoms are acute onset, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia or abdominal discomfort. Most vomiting first and then diarrhea, the stool is egg drop soup or yellow-green watery stool, without mucus, pus and blood, poor mental state, drowsiness, fever, and dehydration in severe cases. It is mainly transmitted through the fecal-oral route and human-to-human contact, and some may also be infected through respiratory transmission. Contact with the feces of infected people and ingestion of contaminated water may cause infection. Do not eat raw and cold food and uncooked food. Hand hygiene is very important. Remind children to wash their hands carefully before and after meals. Parents should also wash their hands in time after changing diapers for their children or helping them go to the toilet. Those with serious conditions should seek medical attention in time.

3. Prevent frostbite and nosebleeds. In winter, you should also keep your head and face warm. In winter, the blood supply to the ears is less than that to other parts of the body. When it is cold, the blood vessels are stimulated by the cold and contract. The entire auricle, except for the earlobe which has some fat tissue to keep warm, has tiny blood vessels and poor heat preservation ability, so frostbite is very likely to occur. The winter climate is cold and dry, and the nasal mucosa is prone to scabs, which makes people feel uncomfortable. Children can't help but pick their noses, causing nosebleeds. Keep the nasal mucosa moist. If the nasal cavity is prone to dryness, you can use a cotton swab dipped in physiological saline to moisten the nasal cavity.

Take good protection in winter, take scientific health care, and your children will get sick less often. I hope every child can grow up healthily. (Li Yan, Lingshou County People's Hospital, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province)