Prevent Your Baby from Catching a Cold During the Rainy Season
Here are some tips to help prevent your baby from catching a cold when it’s rainy and cold outside.
Low temperatures, precipitation, and changes in temperature are known to affect children’s health. Their immune systems are not yet developed and, therefore, don’t have the same defenses as adults or even older children.
With the arrival of the cold weather and the impending rain, many parents wonder what they can do to prevent their children from suffering the typical seasonal illnesses.
Below you’ll find practical tips to prevent your baby from catching a cold.
The rain and your baby’s cold
In the rainy season, there is an increase in the number of respiratory problems such as pneumonia, sinusitis, otitis media, and bronchiolitis, which have greater complications in children.
This is because the rain enables respiratory viruses and pollutants to circulate in the air. As a consequence, your child can have temperatures above 39 degrees Celcius. Temperatures in that range or having a fever for three days are reasons to take your child to the doctor.
To prevent your baby from catching a cold, take care of their diet, monitor their health and keep them bundled up, especially when changing environments with different temperatures.
What to do when your baby has a cold?
Viruses can spread through the air or contact with contaminated objects. Therefore, it’s essential to sanitize your child’s toys, as well as wash their hands frequently. Better yet, if the adults in charge also do.
Now, if cold symptoms are already present, pediatricians recommend providing them plenty of fluids to cool their throat as a first step.
Regarding nasal congestion, apply saline or warm water with salt on the baby’s nose for a quick and effective remedy. Conversely, you should avoid giving antibiotic cough syrups to cure the flu.
Tips to prevent your baby from catching a cold
- Get them used to hygiene. To prevent your baby from catching a cold, it’s important to take care of our personal hygiene and our child’s starting when they are young. Teach them to clean their nose with clean tissues, preferably disposable. Hands should be washed with soap – if it’s antiseptic, even better – for 20 seconds in warm water to eliminate viruses.
- Avoid shared items. It’s preferable not to share glasses or foods that are served from the same place (potatoes, popcorn, etc). Create individual bowls of food, especially if someone in the family has a cold, so germs don’t spread.
- Parental care to prevent colds. When coughing or sneezing, you should cover your mouth and teach your child to do the same. If you practice co-sleeping, keep a distance of 10 to 15 inches between heads so that the cold doesn’t spread.
- A good diet. Take care of your baby’s diet, since the cold weather requires more calories than in the summer. A good diet will strengthen their defenses and help protect them from the cold and other diseases. Breastfeeding will also boost their immune system and protect them from many infections. If they already eat solids, their diet should include fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins A and C, as well as fish and milk. Replace cold drinks with broths, hot drinks, water and natural juices at room temperature.
- Avoid contagious illnesses. If someone in the family has a cold, they should avoid coming into contact with the child. If spending time together is inevitable, a good preventative measure is the use of masks and, of course, avoiding sneezing or coughing in front of the child.
- Keep them out of the cold. To prevent the baby from catching a cold, when going out for a walk they should be well bundled, but without overdoing it. Keeping the baby too warm can be counterproductive since the excess fabric prevents the regulation of their body temperature with the environment.
In addition, the heat at home shouldn’t be set too high, in order to avoid a contrast with the exterior temperatures. It’s essential to protect their nose and mouth when going from warm to cold environments, to offset thermal inversion with the significant reduction in temperature.
- Ventilating the house prevents the baby from catching a cold. Do this frequently so that the viruses in the home go away. However, you must protect your child from the drafts by staying with them in a room without any open windows or doors.
- Avoid crowds. It’s important to take your child to uncrowded spaces, avoiding visiting malls, downtown, shops, etc. Try not to expose the child to these places as they are a focal point for germs.
- Sleep and exercise are essential to preventing your baby from catching a cold. Exercise is recommended because it’s usually beneficial for the child’s immune system. Playing and moving their little body will make them much stronger. Sleep is also very important to enhance children’s defenses. The better the child sleeps, the better he will react to cold and flu viruses. As you can see, there are a lot of practical tips that can help your child avoid catching a cold and what to do if they do catch a cold.