Baby : wash your hands

 

Washing your baby's hands

Washing your baby's hands: the essential step against germs

Regular hand washing is the best way to prevent your child from getting sick. It helps prevent respiratory and digestive diseases that spread throughout the year. Here are our tips to better wash your baby's hands.

Washing children's hands to eliminate germs

80% of germs are transmitted by hands. Washing your child's hands helps interrupt the transmission of infectious agents and prevent them from getting sick. It is an important preventive measure to know.

Washing baby's hands is important

Touch plays a large role in young children's learning. This sense allows little ones to discover the world. Baby's first toys are tactile: they allow them to discover shapes, textures, but also sounds by pressing buttons... In addition, children use their hands to eat, play, or even move around on the floor!

Throughout the day, at daycare, at nursery school, in a group, at the park, or even at home, germs accumulate on your child's hands. Babies touch everything! They put toys, objects, and even their hands in their mouth or eyes. While this allows them to become aware of their body and the world around them, they still risk catching viral, bacterial, or even parasitic diseases! This mode of transmission is called hand-carried.

It is important to wash your child's hands regularly to protect them from germs. This is a gesture to be practiced after playing, touching objects, after blowing your nose, sneezing, coughing, spitting, or even going to the potty or after changing your diaper... Hand washing is also essential before your child eats their meal, or when they come home from daycare or school to eliminate germs accumulated outside.

Germs transmitted by hands

Colds, flu, bronchiolitis, gastroenteritis, are all diseases that are transmitted by the hands.

In addition, hand-foot-mouth disease is a benign viral infection that mainly affects young children. The disease causes red spots topped with blisters in the mouth, on the hands and feet. Other symptoms such as fever, headache, sore throat, and sometimes a cough, runny nose, and diarrhea or vomiting are observed. The infection, which is highly contagious, spreads through contact with hands, but also through saliva, mucus, or infected stools. To catch it, simply touch a soiled object.

Hands are vectors of many bacterial and parasitic diseases. If your child is in contact with a dog or a cat, or with droppings present in a sandbox for example, he or she may be contaminated by parasite eggs. This pathology, toxocariasis, is also often nicknamed "sandbox disease".

In addition, by rubbing their eyes with hands full of germs, your child can also develop eye infections such as conjunctivitis.

How to wash your hands properly

To wash your child's hands properly, soap them for 40 to 60 seconds according to WHO recommendations. For babies, you can use liquid or foam soap, which is easier to apply.

First, teach them to wet their hands, then take a little soap in the palm of their hand and rub their palms, then their fingers. Show them that they have to interlace their fingers to reach all the nooks and crannies. Rub their nails in the palm of their hand, then the top of their hand and wrists. Then rinse thoroughly with clean water before drying. Show them how to dry their hands properly by dabbing them, without rubbing. If possible, you should use single-use paper. Turn off the tap with the paper towel. Explain to your child that a hand that is not properly dried remains dirty.

Hand hygiene, child's play

Washing hands must become a real ritual. Often children do not understand the importance of this gesture and are reluctant to soap their hands.

To make this moment a time of pleasure, you can invent a little rhyme to hum each time they soap their hands! The song allows you to mark the minimum time for scrubbing (40 to 60 seconds), and to memorize the correct actions in the correct order. Invent a story of little monsters (germs) that can be chased away by washing your hands properly. The lyrics of your song describe the actions to take to get rid of these invisible monsters that are everywhere: on tables, doors, toys, the dog... This somewhat boring moment becomes a moment of fun sharing.

Hand hygiene for children without water with a disinfectant gel

While water and soap can kill bacteria, a water point is not always accessible. They allow you to maintain hygiene throughout the day, even without water or soap! At the park, during a family picnic, in case of a cold at school, or even on public transport, this disinfectant solution allows you to have clean hands in all situations.

Choosing a suitable disinfectant solution

Hydroalcoholic gels have bactericidal, virucidal and fungicidal properties. They kill bacteria, viruses and other fungi to prevent any spread.

However, some hospitals warn parents about the dangers associated with using alcohol gels to wash children's hands. The passage of alcohol from these gels into the bloodstream is denounced, especially during significant use. Alcohol can also be aggressive for children's delicate skin.

In addition, some disinfectant gels contain endocrine disruptors such as triclosan, triclocarban, and bisphenol A. These molecules are said to have effects on reproduction. Quality brands, particularly found in pharmacies, are free of them. Pay attention to the compositions!

The alcohol-free disinfectant solution for your child

There is a disinfectant foam of 100% plant origin, without alcohol, without triclosan (endocrine disruptor) and without petrochemical derivatives, which is perfectly suited to children's delicate skin. It will allow you to eliminate all microbes from your hands while respecting your baby's skin.

Tested under dermatological and pediatric control, this no-rinse solution is suitable for the whole family, even babies. Its moisturizing formula will keep your child's hands soft.

To avoid transmitting germs to your child, it is also important that you wash your hands regularly with soap and water or with a disinfectant solution.
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