A Healthy Beginning

When you shoulder multiple responsibilities, it is natural to get panicky when it comes to your kids falling ill. Dr Archana KavalakKat shares a broad overview of the possible health issues your young ones may face through THE different seasons in the New Year, and suggests ways to deal with them, without going on overdrive.
It’s a tight ropewalk most women are on these days, given the many roles they take on. But a large amount of stress, especially for mums, revolves around the wellbeing of their kids. Health is like money—we never appreciate the true value of it until we lose it. It surely pays rich dividends to be alert and conscious of the health of one’s family and oneself.
While it is natural for parents to worry about their child’s health, it would be wiser to anticipate and prepare for ailments that can affect children in a geographically vast country as ours, where one may expect many weather-related, seasonal ailments.
But parents would do well to remember not to go by the myths and beliefs that have been passed down over the years. For instance, stories like ‘bananas cause a cold’, ‘rice causes cough’ or ‘don’t shower when you have a fever’ have no scientific backing. Apply sound scientific knowledge when it comes to diseases as well as their causes and treatments.
Here’s a walk-through of diseases that one can expect through every season in the coming year, which usually begins post springtime when diseases are at their nadir.

Waterborne summers
The summer months bring with along the wrath of the Sun God, especially in the northern parts of our country. Largely characterised by heatstroke and problems related to water shortage, this is the time when most children are exposed to consumption of polluted water. The summers are also vacation time for most children in the country, and families tend to travel to various destinations, during which time children tend to consume food and water from outside their homes.

What to expect
Waterborne diseases like typhoid, gastroenteritis and hepatitis

How to avoid the ailments
• Ensure consumption of clean drinking water
• Choose wisely if eating out, and avoid uncooked salads and milk-based sweets, especially if served cold
• Try not to indulge in your favourite chaat this season even if vendors vouch for the hygiene they maintain
• Ensure adequate fluid intake, especially in case of younger children who are unable to hydrate themselves
• Try not to go out during afternoon hours, if possible, to avoid heatstroke
• Make kids wear light, protective clothing that covers their arms and legs, in order to protect
them from the intense heat and UV rays

The soothing monsoon showers
Long spells of summer are followed by much-awaited showers. However, those welcome showers bring with them a peak in communicable diseases, particularly in regions that receive heavy rainfall. But despite all the poetry around the monsoons and the grey skies, this is a time when most clinics across the monsoon-affected parts of the country run full, with patients showing symptoms of many waterborne diseases, thanks to the flooding, clogging, pooling of water and bursting of pipes
all around.

What to expect
Waterborne diseases, as mentioned above, prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases, like malaria and dengue; leptospirosis, a deadly disease that can affect multiple organs like the brain, liver and kidneys, and spreads by contact with rat urine present in puddles of water although leptospirosis has a cure, it can make your child extremely sick

How to avoid the ailments
• Drink boiled water—the safest and surest form of protection
• Maintain simple hygiene, like washing your hands before eating
• Keep yourself and your kids protected from mosquito bites by using nets, barrier creams and mosquito repellents
• Avoid walking through puddles of water, as germs present in rat urine can enter our bloodstream through broken or cut skin
• Discuss with your doctor about vaccinating your children against preventable diseases like hepatitis A, typhoid, rotavirus diarrhoea and cholera, so that they can be protected against these diseases.

The winter chills
Mostly associated with firecrackers on a nippy Diwali, Christmas cheer and the anticipation of the New Year, winter is perhaps the one season that is most looked forward to by many. What usually comes to one’s mind are the many cups of hot chocolate, the snuggling into the quilt and endless plates of crispy, fried goodies. But winters, too, bring a truckload of ailments.

What to expect
The nip in the air and cartloads of viruses during winter mostly cause respiratory illnesses. The cold air is higher in density, thus increasing the suspended particles and pollutants, per unit volume of the air. Naturally, this is not a season that children prone to allergies and asthma attacks look forward to.
Another disease that is common this season is chickenpox.
Also be prepared for flu and outbreak of flu-like illnesses like swine flu, as witnessed in the past few years.

How to avoid the ailments
• Vaccinate children against seasonal flu and the swine flu virus. This yearly vaccine becomes available around August/September, every year.
• Parents can also vaccinate their kids against chicken pox; the vaccination, however, can only be given to children above 15 months of age.
• Ensure that children who need
to take inhalers for their asthma are regular with their medication, as this disease exacerbates during
the season.
• Respiratory illnesses may have minor symptoms like a runny-nose, cough, fever and headache; remember that these problems need only symptomatic treatment.
• Keep a close watch on your children to ensure that they do not have any breathing difficulty; pay urgent attention if the child has short and quick breaths, makes abnormal breathing sounds and is exhausted
and restless.
It is possible that despite all the precautions one takes, calamities still strike, and you may have a sick child at home. Nevertheless, you still do not have to rush to the doctor at the slightest suspicion of an illness.
The key is to stay alert and not panic. An alert parent can avert many major problems. There will be plenty of reasons, then, to welcome the New Year as yet another healthy and happy one. Cheers!
How to deal with problems and when to seek urgent attention:
• Increase fluid intake to almost 1½ times the normal when fever is high.
• Ensure that the child takes small but frequent feeds to maintain nutrition.
• Breastfeeding mothers should drink more water themselves and focus on breastfeeding their kids.
• Watch urination patterns of the child, and monitor the volumes and colour of urine. Decreased urination is a bad sign.
• An alert and playful child is a good sign. But if your child looks dull and lethargic, he or she needs urgent evaluation by your doctor.
• Do not medicate your children without your doctor’s advice. A good doctor prescribes drugs like antibiotics only in specific situations. Misusing them may complicate your child’s illness or delay the diagnosis.
• Do not subject your child to any investigations and tests without the advice of your doctor. Interpreting test results in children is best done by a doctor who is experienced in caring for children.
• Remember, not every fever is malaria or dengue fever.
• Malaria is a treatable disease.
• Dengue fever may not have a cure, but only a few of the several thousand patients of dengue get very serious. Most cases of dengue fever can be treated at home. Monitoring your child well will warn you well in advance if things are getting out of control.