The best way to protect a child from illness is to carry out timely and competent prevention. Hardening is considered one of the best preventive methods. However, you should not rush headlong into extreme procedures, parents need to take into account various factors, such as the state of health of the baby, the features of his immunity, his age. The well-known children's doctor Yevgeny Komarovsky often tells parents how to correctly approach the issues of hardening toddlers, children of preschool and school age.
What it is
Hardening of children is a set of measures to influence the child's body of various natural factors, such as sunlight, water, air, and so on. Often, it is based on contrast (a decrease and increase in the ambient temperature in relation to the child's body temperature, an increase and increase in atmospheric pressure. The goal is to bring the body into "combat readiness", impact.
Doctors have long proven that systematic hardening improves cell composition, all organs and systems begin to function more harmoniously and better. Sleep and appetite improve, blood circulation is normalized, metabolic processes, adaptive mechanisms are improved faster, the nervous system is strengthened. This method of prevention was also known to the healers of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Medicine knows many ways of hardening. The simplest and most affordable at home are wiping and dousing, contrast showers, sunbathing, playing sports and walking in the fresh air. A relatively long stay in ice water (the so-called winter swimming) is not recommended for children, they are better suited to the contrasting alternation of warm and cool water.
You can temper a child as a whole or practice local procedures - hardening of the throat, for example (for this there is a well-known and delicious way - ice cream). It is important that the therapy is constant, because after a long break, the effect of hardening is minimized, and then it is completely lost.
The opinion of Dr. Komarovsky
Evgeny Komarovsky, like many of his colleagues, believes that all children are born with great immune capabilities and abilities. And the first years of a new person's life are connected, alas, with the fact that the people who love them the most - parents - do everything possible and impossible to destroy these innate abilities to adapt to the world around them. To do this, they do not do anything supernatural, it is enough to create greenhouse conditions for the baby, dress them warmly, monitor the sterility of the food that the baby eats, close the windows and doors tightly, and often give the child various medications.
And here is the actual issue of Dr. Komarovsky's program dedicated to children's hardening.
As a result, you will get a child who will often and strongly be ill with all imaginable and inconceivable diseases, the first place among them, definitely, will be taken by colds and viral infections.
Evgeny Olegovich is sure that children should be hardened from birth. The main thing is to do this every day, without missing a single procedure, and to approach hardening for reasons of rationality. If mom and dad thought and decided that they want to temper their child, they should start by consulting a pediatrician. The specialist will examine the baby, prescribe laboratory tests, if necessary, and give his verdict whether this particular child can be tempered, and which of the known methods is better to choose.
When hardening is undesirable
- With heart defects.
- With a low level of hemoglobin in the blood (anemia).
- With influenza and acute respiratory viral infections, especially if diseases are accompanied by an increase in body temperature.
- In severe neurological conditions of the newborn.
- Deeply premature babies and babies with different stages of wasting.
Newborns
For a baby who has just been born, ordinary rituals are quite suitable as hardening - morning exercises, changing clothes for a walk, evening bathing. If the pediatrician permits, you can gradually start pouring the baby's legs, first with cool water, and then with cold water. The duration of the procedures should be gradually increased. It is not necessary to practice contrast baths, but walks should become a mandatory attribute of every baby's day, Evgeny Komarovsky recommends walking with him regardless of weather conditions and the time of year.
Washing is the very first hardening. It is advisable to acquaint the baby with water on the first day after discharge from the hospital, the main thing is that the water temperature is at least 28 degrees. It can be lowered by 2-3 degrees every three months, not more often.
You can douse a child from birth, observing the temperature regime, which we have already described above. This should be done once a day, after bathing. First, the heels are carefully poured, then the legs, arms, stomach and smoothly move to the back of the crumbs.
From six months old, the baby can be wiped off with water using a special flannel mitt. At first - only arms and legs, then you can wipe the back, and last of all - the chest and tummy.
Sunbathing is very useful for babies, because under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, vitamin D is produced, which the body needs to prevent rickets from developing. The main thing is to dose the crumbs' exposure to the sun, to avoid prolonged exposure to direct rays on the baby's skin.
Children 3 years and older
It's never too late to harden, Evgeny Komarovsky is convinced. Therefore, it is possible for a child to start such procedures at any age, if parents did not practice it in infancy. The approach is still the same, however, starting from the age of three, you can use a contrast shower, and from the age of 4, you can douse the child with cold water outside, however, without fanaticism. From the age of three, a child can be allowed in the summer on a warm day to be in the fresh air for a rather long time in only panties. A systematic visit to the pool is useful.
Doctor Komarovsky's advice
- Conditions (water temperature, for example) should be changed only gradually. A sharp jump can negatively affect the well-being of the child.
- It is advisable to carry out the procedures in a playful way, so that the baby perceives what is happening as a fun activity and wants to temper.
- If the child begins to inadequately perceive the next increase or decrease in the temperature of the water and air, he cries and is capricious, the procedure should be stopped, and the next day he should return to the previous temperature level.
- When dousing and rubbing, you should cover the genitals of boys in order to prevent temperature changes in the genital area, as this can subsequently negatively affect reproductive function.
- In no case should you overfeed your child. He should eat when he wants to, and not when the time has come, according to mom and dad. A healthy baby is always a little hungry, moderately thin and very mobile, says Komarovsky. These three words should become guidelines for caring parents.
- One of the most important factors in his hardening system, Evgeny Komarovsky considers the creation of normal conditions in the house where the child lives. We need regular ventilation at any time of the year, especially if the baby is sick. The air temperature in the room should not exceed 18-20 degrees, humidity - 40-60%.
- The child should not be wrapped up; he should always be dressed for the weather. The way you dress yourself. The thermoregulation of a small body can be disrupted by the fact that an overly loving mother or grandmother has dressed the little one for a walk in 2-3 blouses and a pair of jackets on top. Sweating is a sure way to get colds.
- Parents should be guided by the child's reaction to hardening. The temperature of water and air are purely individual factors, for some they will be higher, for others they will be lower, it all depends on how comfortable the baby will feel during the procedures.
Komarovsky always emphasizes that hardening is not a treatment, and cold douches cannot relieve a child of sinusitis or chronic bronchitis. It is designed to increase immunity, even in frequently ill children, but it does not protect 100% from infection with influenza or SARS. Even a hardened child can get sick. But, firstly, his chances of catching an infection are somewhat lower, and, secondly, he will endure the disease faster and easier than his unhardened peers, whom his parents raise in greenhouse conditions.
