Preventing heat-related illness in children as temperatures rise

Summer arrival should mean more outdoor platte for children, but previous summer lessons warns a different experience. Pediatricians see that since climate change leads to higher temperatures each year and for a long time of warm days, parents need to be rapidly aware of the risks of heat related disease on children.

If you feel hot, your children are feeling warm. In pediatrics, our mantra emphasizes that children are not small adults. It is important to identify the unique weaknesses of children during a period of high temperature.

How children respond to heat compared to adults, there are congenital differences. In infants and young children, the body’s surface area is more than mass, so they get heat quickly, three to five times faster than an adult.

Children are particularly weak because they are still their development Sweat And thermoregulatory system. While they sweat, it is not as efficient in cooling them.

In addition, the infant cannot modify their behavior to cool down or tell us that they are overheating. They are dependent on their carers to identify signs of heat -related disease and offer relief.

Early signs of overheating in infants and young children include sweating, feeling warm to face loss or touching. Later signs may include rapid breathing, muscle aches or cramps, vomiting, confusion, fainting, headache and yellow or clamy skin feelings.

Some of the more subtle signals include fatigue or listlessness, irritability and decrease in urination. These symptoms require a career to closely look at your baby or child to monitor and identify.

To reduce the effects of heat, some parents make tents with a blanket or sun shield Car seatsStroller or beach chairs. Although they can provide some protection from the glare of the sun, they can implicate heat and limit ventilation. Importantly, they can disrupt the child’s ideas and prevent close monitoring, and therefore increase the risk of overheating.

Older children may be at risk for excessive heat stroke while increasing physical activity during holiday or sports training. Children have rapid metabolic rates and more heat is produced during exercise.

In addition, children take longer to exercise in summer. The American Academy of Pediatrics has guidelines for coaches, athletic trainers and others, which are on the prevention of heat related disease, including excellence, gear limits and hydration, as well as management of athletes that display symptoms of overheating.

One of the biggest risk for children Excessive heat There are hot cars, which is why many states have laws against leaving unaccounted children in cars. The heat stroke of vehicles kills dozens of children every year in the United States, often after leaving alone in the car or playing in the car and getting trapped.

Parents with well intentions can leave a sleeping child with a window in the car. However, the temperature in cars can rise to 20 degrees in 10 minutes. In the time it takes to obtain a latte in the day of 85 degrees, a child can be at 105 degrees, which is hot enough to cause organ failure.

Many parents ask, “How hot is the children to go out?” While the temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit can pose a risk of heat -related disease, it is important for the heat index and humidity, time period, type of activities and cooling strategies.

Living in shaded areas, using a cool mist and fan, keeping hydrated, and wearing light colored and loose-melted clothes can all help keep a child cool.

On extremely hot days, fans are not enough and when the temperature is above 90 degrees, they can also get you heat. Air conditioning has been shown protective, so it is important to identify accessible air -conditioned buildings and take a break from heat.

As parents work to protect their children from rising temperature every day, there is a need for extensive systematic support. The early childhood scientific council on equity and environment at the center on a developing child at Harvard University issued a working paper to affect the extreme heat, in which they underline a outline to identify the root causes and both see the solutions with short-term and long-term communities.

Infrastructure and community engagement solutions require, such as school participation, heat-flexible urban planning, extended greening, inexpensive cooling options and more addresses Climate change-Related effects on bail health.

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