In summer, in hot weather, certain practices can endanger babies.
During hot weather, it is essential to adopt the right gestures to protect toddlers from heat-related risks, such as dehydration or heat strokes. Some reflexes are essential: to remove the superfluous elements on the stroller to improve air circulation, install a shadow with a stroller or a sun visor in the car, cover the baby’s head with a hat, apply a sunscreen adapted to its age offering wide spectrum protection against UVA and UVB, offer it water very frequently (even if it does not claim it) and avoid leaving between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The most intense. If these gestures are often common sense, other attitudes may seem harmless but are actually strongly discouraged because they increase the risk of overheating.
1 – Cover the baby stroller
The first gesture to avoid is to cover the baby’s stroller with a scoring to protect it from the sun. Indeed, this practice is misleading. The pediatrician Svante Norgren, at the Children’s Hospital in Stockholm, recalls that this creates a “Fournaise effect”. In addition, the air does not circulate properly, which prevents good ventilation. Thus, the child has trouble breathing and “The temperature in the stroller increases considerably”He told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. During his tests, the pediatrician found that after an hour and a half, a covered stroller reached 37 degrees, against 22 degrees for a stroller in the open air.
2 – Keep baby milk in the sun
Another idea not to reproduce, give a lukewarm milk bottle to your child. Under the effect of heat, milk can deteriorate faster, thus promoting the multiplication of bacteria. If your baby does not finish his bottle and he stays too long in the sun, you shouldn’t give him back.
3 – Adapt baby outfit
In hot weather, it is also important not to dress baby with synthetic textiles or to multiply the clothes of clothing. These artificial materials can worsen irritations on the sensitive baby’s skin, already affected by heat and the sun. Favor more natural fibers (cotton, linen, etc.), which allow better breathing of the skin. And if your child does not like to stay only in diaper during the summer, opt for a short cotton sleeve body.
4 – Watch out for the fogger
In addition, to refresh baby, parents often use a fogger. Admittedly, this can be very useful, but for a young child, the spray must not be kept in the refrigerator, because if you vaporize him too fresh, this could cause thermal shock, caused by the difference between the freshness of the water and the ambient heat. It is better to keep the spray in a cool place and out of heat, in a cupboard or a fresh room.
5- and air conditioning
Finally, putting a baby near an air conditioning, whether mobile or fixed to the wall, is strongly discouraged due to the risk of thermal shock. Instead, take advantage of his absence to light the air conditioning in the house or in his room, to refresh the air before his return. Finally, you can also place a fan in the main room without directing it directly to the child.
