5 Tips to Protect Children’s Respiratory Tract in Winter

According to report, 4 to 5 million children aged 0~5 died of respiratory infections.

In winter, the weather gets colder. Children of poor health are very prone to respiratory infections due to parents’ lacking of care. And the highest incidence of respiratory infection happens in winter. This disease not only affects children’s healthy growth, but cause lots of complication to them, even takes their life. Thus, what measure should parents take to protect children’s respiratory tract?

1. Good indoor environment

Early in the winter, the indoor temperature should be controlled at 18 to 22 cent degree, while the relative humidity should be 45% to 55%. Adults are not allowed to smoke in the room to avoid air pollution, or it will do harm to child’s respiratory tract.

Purify indoor air since the air will be inhaled into the respiratory tract, or it is most likely to cause respiratory diseases. Therefore, parents should pay attention to ventilation in the room, and open the window regularly to keep fresh indoor air. Besides, parents should let more sunlight shines into the room when it is sunny for ultraviolet radiation can kill germ and bacteria.

2. Keep children in warm

If children catch cold, vessels in their respiratory tract shrinks that reduces the blood supply and declines partial body resistance, then, bacteria will be easily penetrated in to the respiratory tract.

Keep children’s foot in warm is more important since there are lots of nerve linked between the foot and upper respiratory tract mucous membrane. If the children’s foot is always cold, it will cause fever and cough to them easily, then cause the respiratory infection finally. Therefore, children should use hot water to wash their foot before go to bed or do some massage on their foot. It can prevent respiratory infection.

3. Keep children’s hands clean

Hand is the media for disease transmission. The cold virus can survive for 70 hours on the dirty hands, but can not stay in one minute on clean hands. Therefore, in winter, parents can use cold water to wash children’s hands before they go out, to enhance their ability to adapt to the outdoor temperature.

4. More outdoor exercise

Parents should encourage their children to do more outdoor exercise, such as walking, jogging, and riding bicycle, etc. It can increase children’s body resistance.

5. Enough sleep

For children, the peak time of growth hormone secretion is 22:00 o’clock. It is good for children to sleep before 21:00 o’clock in winter. Or it will affect their health and growth due to lack of sleep or irregular work and rest. And their body resistance decreases. Therefore, parents should teach children in good sleep habits, and provide a comfortable sleeping environment, such as comfortable beds, so that children can sleep well every night.

Children are very sensitive to be in cold and respiratory infection, especially in winter. It is important for parents to make some necessary measures to protect them.