They say that children born in winter grow up stronger and healthier. It is difficult to say whether there is a healthy rational grain here, but it is known for certain that parents of winter children have more reasons to worry, because it is important to prevent vitamin D deficiency, and you also need to walk with your child, but after all, it's frost or snowy slush outside! Yevgeny Komarovsky, a children's doctor and author of numerous books on children's health, tells how to walk with newborns who were born in the cold season.
Walking is natural
For a person, life under a roof is a necessity that appeared over time, when civilization began to conquer natural inclinations, Komarovsky believes. Adults will name 150 reasons why they need a roof over their heads. The child does not know a single reason, he is closer to nature, and the requirements of a civilized society are alien to him. That is why it is possible and necessary to walk with a child, even one born in the cold season.
Indoors there are always more viruses and bacteria than outside, there is no sunlight at home (light through the window does not replace them). Children get fresh air and sunlight only outside. To walk with a child, according to Komarovsky, parents also need to be taught. After all, the fear of taking a child out into the cold in winter, the fear that he will breathe in the frosty air and get sick, is still firmly in the heads of moms and dads.
All parents should remember that while the child is breathing fresh air, his lungs and bronchi are freed from house dust that accumulates in the respiratory organs.
The upper respiratory tract is also cleansed and moisturized, which reduces the risk of developing a respiratory infection. All systems of the toddler's body begin to work more intensively, because the small body needs to maintain the level of energy consumption (in low temperature conditions, for example).
Rules for walking with a newborn
The first walk with a newborn is a special event for the whole family. Komarovsky advises not to delay with this, and start walking already on the 10th day after discharge from the hospital... The duration of the first air exit is no more than 10-15 minutes. But the very next day, you can make two exits for the same time. Gradually, by the month, the child should spend as much time in the fresh air as the parents and established weather conditions can afford.
It is very good to immediately determine the place where the child will walk for the first few months.
It is not at all necessary to drag a heavy stroller up the stairs, first down and then back in order to ride the little one along a busy street for ten minutes, where different people walk, including carriers of SARS and flu.
It is most preferable to walk on the balcony in winter. If there is no balcony, then in the yard of your own house. If this is not possible, choose quiet places for walks where there are no large crowds of people, in winter these are parks and squares. Driving along the streets can only be caused by an urgent need - you need to get to the clinic, you need to go to a pharmacy or a store, but there are no assistants.
An important question is how to dress a child, this is especially true in winter. You should not be afraid of wind, snowfall, frost, because a healthy child, who is also properly dressed, will not feel the slightest discomfort from a walk. This, however, does not mean that you need to carry the baby outside in any frost.
Komarovsky advises to remember a simple rule that will allow you to quickly figure out whether to walk today or not. For each month of a child's life - minus 5 degrees, but not lower than 15 degrees for any baby. Thus, if the child is 1 month old, then you can walk with him at minus five, and if two months - then already at minus ten.
There are no universal tips on how to dress a baby. You can only understand if you did it right after returning from the first walk. If the baby is sweating, flushed, the next exit you need to reduce the amount of clothes... Cold is the fear of all adults without exception. But, according to Komarovsky, frozen children are hundreds of times less common than children who have been carefully wrapped up. It is simple to understand that the child is hot - he begins to be capricious, cry, turn out of clothes, does not want to enjoy the walk and refuses to sleep on the street.
Children have a completely different metabolic rate, and therefore, where mom and dad are freezing, children feel normal, and where adult family members are warm, the child becomes hot. Therefore, dressing it should be a little easier than what your grandmother requires. There are more diseases from sweating than from mild hypothermia.
If the child is sick
The immunity of a newborn is far from perfect, and if a mother is breastfeeding, then the protection is slightly higher than that of artificial ones. Quite often, after being discharged from the hospital, the baby gets sick. Parents at this moment do not even allow the thought of possible walks.
Yevgeny Komarovsky claims that only high temperatures can be a contraindication for breathing winter air. If there is no heat, go for a walk with your snotty toddler without a shadow of a doubt.
If, after several walks, the baby develops a wet cough, do not be afraid, this is a very positive change in his condition, indicating that the mucous membranes of the respiratory system began to moisten, the baby began to cough up.
Whether walks with newborns in winter are useful, see below in the program of Dr. Komarovsky.
