During the summer time, you will want to push your children to go outside and play. They need to get their exercise and enjoy the weather while they can. When they are outside playing, you need to be aware of the heat and how long your children are outside. Being outside is good for your children, however, if it gets too hot, they can suffer from dehydration or heat stroke.
Dehydration is when your body becomes depleted of its water supply. The causes can range from a fever, diarrhea, vomiting, or heat related. When you are overexposed to the sun, your body becomes dehydrated. The symptoms are dry skin, fatigue, dizziness, confusion, or increased heart rate and breathing. In children, you need to look for irritability, no tears when crying, or a dry diaper for more than three hours. If caught early and the cause was heat related, you will need to re hydrate your child. Most sports drinks will replenish the body fluids, electrolytes, and salt balance. You can help prevent dehydration by making sure that your fluid intake is more than you are losing, as well as scheduling your outdoor activities for the cooler parts of the day.
Heat stroke, however, is far more severe than dehydration and is a life-threatening emergency. Long, extreme exposure to the sun where the person does not sweat enough to lower the body temperature can cause a heat stroke. What happens is that our bodies have a lot of internal heat and sweating and radiating the heat through our skin cools us down. But when you add extreme heat, high humidity, etc, our cooling system begins to fail. The symptoms you need to look for is a headache, dizziness, disorientation, rapid heart beat, hallucinations, and loss of consciousness. Though it is a medical emergency, there are things you can do in the meantime. It is imperative to get the person indoors and remove their clothing. Apply ice packs to their groin and armpits while adding cool water to their skin simultaneously fanning them.
It is crucial that you pay attention to your child's activities to insure that they are not susceptible to heat stroke or dehydration. Limit their outdoor play when it is the hottest time of the day and make sure they are drinking plenty of water. Pay attention to your children and their behavior while outside in the hot weather.
Labels: information, KidKraft
by: Child Basics
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