Babies and water don’t mix | Happy parents, safer kids
Babies and water don’t mix
Be careful when giving your infant water this summer — it could be the difference between a day at the beach and a day at the hospital.
“Babies need extra fluids in the hot weather, but straight water is not one of them,” says Dr. Allen Walker, a pediatrician and head of the Emergency Department at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Baltimore. “Too much water can disrupt the delicate balance in a baby's body, leading to water intoxication. Before you know it, the baby is seizing.”
Water intoxication is one of the leading causes of healthy infant seizures because it dilutes sodium in the blood and flushes it out of the body, which alters brain activity. Infants under 1 year of age are more prone to intoxication, as are children who are already dehydrated — look for warning signs, like if a child has fewer than three wet diapers in 24 hours, Walker says.
Though the seizures have no lasting effects, stick to breast milk and formula instead of water to keep a child under 1 year of age who isn't eating solid foods hydrated. If concern does arise, check for these common symptoms: changes in mental status (unusual irritability or drowsiness), low body temperature (usually 97 degrees or less), facial swelling or puffiness and seizures.
Happy parents, safer kids
Seeking proper help for depression not only improves your health but also can keep bumps off your children as well.
According to a recent study by University of Alabama at Birmingham psychologist David Schwebel, Ph.D., infants and toddlers — from birth to three years — whose mothers were severely depressed were almost three times more likely to suffer accidental injuries than other children of similar age. This link remained constant through ranges in socio-economic status, parenting styles and the child's sex, temperament and behavior.
Schwebel says reasons for these results are likely to draw from chronically depressed mothers being unable to safeguard the physical environments of their children or give them the attention they need. Poor concentration and irritability may also contribute, which “might lead to poor or inconsistent supervision and enforcement of safety-related rules,” he says. Once they're older, the difference in injury rate between children shrinks. Schwebel says this is perhaps because older children begin making their own decisions about how to act, “Therefore, parents matter a little less,” he says.
“Particular, inadequate supervision by a depressed mother might not influence the child's safety as much as it does during the toddler years.”
(c) CTW Features