Preventing Sicknesses During Rainy Season

Rainy season is a time of joy and a time of hope for many reasons. First, the farmers and gardeners are joyous and hopeful that their crops will germinate and gardens will blossom. Secondly, and especially for those that do not have a good uninterrupted supply of potable water supply, it provides a source of water supply that caters for so many needs in the household. However, rainy season equally brings a lot of health challenges especially for children. These challenges include, but are not limited to influenza, diarrhoea, cholera, malaria and other waterborne diseases. The good thing however, is that through some precautionary measures, these health challenges can easily be prevented. Here are some tips:

• Washing of hands regularly, and especially after coming in contact with people and other things. As much as possible, wash their hands when they get back from school, from playgrounds, from playing with toys even in the compounds, after crawling and before feeding them. You could also use wipes to clean the hands of toddlers as often as is required
• Let them know the dangers of touching their faces, eyes, nose or mouth as this becomes the entry points for viruses
• Because mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, clean up and empty all water containers that could help them breed – cover the ones that you use for storing water
• Get your little cutties fitted appropriately for the rainy season – they should have their little raincoats, rain boots, their little umbrellas, sweaters, warm caps and all other gears necessary to keep them warm
• Introduce hot/warm tea for the cutties. Most times, they would want to resist, but do your best to get them to drink it
• Make sure that they are getting enough of vitamin C; this they could get either through taking citrus fruits or through Vitamin C supplement
• Give them lots of clean drinking water – this helps to keep their system clean
• Above all, apply the above to yourself so you too can stay healthy to look after them