Below is lifesaving first aid advice from St John Ambulance with tips to help keep kids cool (especially at night).  

Signs a child is experiencing a heat-related illness

Infants and small children can’t regulate their body temperature in the same way that adults can, which means an increased risk of harm from the heat. On any day of hot weather children can be adversely affected, but during the extended period of a heatwave parents need to be extra vigilant.

Signs that your child is suffering a heat-related illness include:

• Headache 
• Dizziness 
• Feeling or being sick 
• Sunken eyes or soft spot on infant’s head 
• Not passing urine for 12 hours or more 

Heat Exhaustion

Long periods in the sun can lead to heat exhaustion, which is more common during a heatwave. Heat exhaustion is caused by a loss of salt and water from the body. It develops slowly and usually happens to people who aren’t used to hot or humid weather.

How to spot heat exhaustion  

There are six key warning signs:   

• Headache   
• Dizziness and confusion   
• Loss of appetite and feeling sick   
• Sweating with pale clammy skin   
• Cramps in the arms, legs and stomach   
• Fast, weakening pulse and breathing   

How to treat someone with heat exhaustion:   

1. Lie them down in a cool place and raise their legs   
2. Give them lots of water to drink (or isotonic sports drinks)   
3. Check their breathing, pulse and responsiveness 
4. Call emergency service if you are concerned

Heatstroke

Heatstroke is more serious than heat exhaustion and can be life-threatening.  

How to spot heatstroke 

There are six key things to look out for:   

• Headache, dizziness and discomfort   
• Restlessness and confusion   
• Hot flushed and dry skin   
• A fast deterioration in the level of response   
• A full bounding pulse   
• Body temperature above 40°C (104°F)   
   

How to treat someone with heatstroke:    

1. Move them to a cool place and remove their outer clothing     
2. Call emergency services    
3. Sit them down and wrap them in a cool, wet sheet. If a sheet isn’t available fan them or sponge them down with cold water. If available, use cold packs placed in the armpits and around the neck
4. Once their temperature is back to normal, replace the wet sheet with a dry sheet
5. While waiting for help to arrive, keep checking their temperature, as well as their breathing, pulse and level of response
6. If they start getting hot again, repeat the cooling process to lower their temperature

Sunburn

It’s important to avoid too much exposure to the sun by covering up with clothing, staying in the shade and applying high factor sunscreen. In severe sunburn cases the skin can become damaged, turn bright red and blister. People with sunburn can also develop heat exhaustion.   

What to look for:  

• Reddened skin   
• Pain in the area of the burn   
• Blistering   

How to treat someone with sunburn:

1. Cover the skin with light clothing and move them out of the sun  
2. Give them cold water to sip  
3. Cool the skin with cool water for 10 minutes 
4. Apply after sun lotion to soothe mild sunburn   
5. If there are blisters see a healthcare professional
6. In severe cases, treat symptoms of heat exhaustion or heatstroke and get medical help

Dehydration

Dehydration occurs when you lose more fluid than you take in. This can happen extremely easily during a heatwave so make sure the whole family is sipping lots of water at regular intervals.  

How to spot dehydration   

There are four key signs:   

• Headaches and lightheadedness   
• Dry mouth, eyes and lips   
• Passing only small amounts of dark urine   
• Muscle cramps   

How to treat someone with dehydration:    

1. Sit them down and give plenty of water to drink 
2. Give them an oral rehydration solution drink to help replace salt and other minerals which they’ve lost
3. If they have any painful cramps, get them to rest, help them stretch and massage the muscles that hurt
4. Keep checking how they are. If they still feel unwell after rehydrating seek medical advice   

If left untreated, dehydration can develop into heat exhaustion, which is more serious. Therefore it’s important to rehydrate as soon as possible.   

Top tips for keeping small children cool in hot weather and a heatwave  

• Keep bedroom temperatures between 16-20 degrees Celsius 
• Never angle fans directly onto a baby or child to cool them down, instead focus on cooling the room and reduce clothing appropriately 
• Use a lighter bedding and reduce the Tog of sleep bags to accommodate for warmer weather 
• If safe to do so, open a bedroom door and window to help circulate air through the room 
• When outside, a sunshade or parasol should be used instead of a muslin cloth to cover infants in prams or buggies
• Never leave children in cars, even for a short period. The temperature in a car quickly rises and cause harm to those inside. 

“During the day, we can sometimes forget how everyday activities such as driving for long periods and picnics in the hot weather can affect children and infants differently to adults. 

Long car journeys should be broken up with regular stops for rest and hydration. Under six months, breast fed babies do not need additional fluids but will probably need to feed more often. Nursing mothers should ensure their own fluid intake is kept adequate for the conditions. Bottle fed babies may require some additional water, but there is no advice regarding quantity and too much can also be dangerous.”   

Richard Webb, National Clinical Lead for young people at St John Ambulance

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St John Ambulance is England’s leading first aid and health response charity.  For more information and a first aid refresher, head to St John Ambulance’s website www.sja.org.uk 

Emergency service numbers around the world

https://www.netflights.com/blog/global-emergency-numbers/

The post Heatwave Survival: First Aid Advice for Families appeared first on The Parent Social.

I would not stockpile, but here’s what would be on my essentials list for a Coronavirus lockdown or any other period of quarantine.

Lockdown shopping list

Olive oil – the starting point of about 80% of my cooking

Tinned tomatoes – I’m half Italian, tomatoes feature quite heavily in my cooking

Pasta – (see above)

Soup – As a working-from-home freelancer I always have a stock for lunch; might grab a couple (I mean a couple) of extra cans/cartons .

Calpol – Suddenly realised yesterday that we’d run out. Went to get our usual bottle and discovered, surprise, surprise, it had run out at Boots and Asda. Managed to get a 24 packet of the fastmelts, which we’ve never had before   

Flour (plus yeast) – We make quite a lot of bread; 350g of flour will make a loaf and it costs about 30p

Paracetamol – Matt suffers with headaches, so we always need some in the house. Also, required if we get a temperature. We were extremely low, so I bagged two very cheap packets at Lidl. Which? has a great article about the cheapest places to buy popular medicines

Cannellini beans, kidney beans, chickpeas – these are staples of so many favourite family meals. They are always on my shopping list.   

Lentils – We had Lincolnshire sausage & lentil simmer for the first time the other week. Amazingly the kids loved the Puy lentils; healthy, filling and pretty cheap, I’m going to buy more and look for other recipes. Suggestions welcome  

Tinned tuna – We’re all fans of fresh fish, but store cupboard tuna pasta bake is one of Maria’s favourites. It requires two tins of the fishy stuff, so I’ll make sure I get some in

Wine – No explanation required

Berries, bananas and any other fruit that freezes well – Not just about fruit, this is a good guide on stocking your freezer

Frozen vegetables – I’m a big fan of frozen veg anyway: it works out cheaper, means I include it more regularly in the kids’ meals and it cuts down significantly on waste

Milk – We get ours delivered from milk&more; no trips to the supermarket and it comes in environmentally-friendly glass bottles. They also deliver our eggs, butter, orange juice and a number of other groceries

Rice – Another staple in our household from accompanying winter warming chilli con carne to a quick egg-fried rice at lunch

Replenish first aid kit – embarrassingly, until a couple of years ago I didn’t have one. Make sure you do (for any event). The Millie’s Trust one is great.   

Pack of A4 paper – pencil and paper are the best boredom busters ever

Bleach – my dad has always been obsessed with it and uses copious amounts when cleaning floors and bathrooms (he does a lot of my cleaning!)

Chocolate and biscuits  – Long shelf-life and good for energy and morale!

Here the Independent provides a list of the supermarket rules for lockdown shoppers.

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Buying a First Aid Kit

A bit embarrassed that I was so inept and actually concerned that I have three children and I wouldn’t have anything to hand if they did have an accident, I Immediately went to the chemist and bought a Steroplast First Aid Kit for the Home.

The kit contained the essentials – bandage, tape, two low adherent dressings, triangular bandage, gloves, safety pins, two wipes and 10 assorted plasters – and I felt a lot more at ease knowing that we now had it in the house.

Millie’s Trust First Aid Kit

Then Steroplast got in touch to tell me about Millie’s Trust, the charity they sponsor. The trust was created by the parents of Millie Thompson who tragically passed away in a choking incident at nursery in October 2012. It aims to make first aid training readily available for minimal costs and in as many places as possible.

Steroplast makes a first aid kit for Millie’s Trust. The kit is BS8599-1 compliant, which means it’s definitely suitable as a small work place first aid kit, but it’s actually designed and created to be ideal for nurseries, pre-schools and individuals. As Millie’s Trust raises awareness in particular about paediatric first aid there are added extras included in the kit for paediatric use, and each kit comes with a choking & CPR guide for emergencies.

This first aid kit contains A LOT!

The kit comes in a nice clear Millie’s Trust-branded case and contains:

One large sterile dressing  
Four medium sterile dressings 
Two sterile eye pad dressings
Two triangular bandages 
20 sterile saline wipes (cleansing wipes) 
40 washproof sterile plasters
Six pairs of nitrile gloves 
Five low adherent absorbent dressings 
One way valve resusciade (the shield mask for mouth-to-mouth)
One Burnshield emergency burn care dressing (hydrogel) 
Two sterile finger dressings
Five 20ml pods of sterile eye/woundwash 
An emergency foil blanket 
A pack of five sterile gauze swabs 
Burnshield Hydrogel 50ml 
One conforming bandage 
Microporous tape 
A pair of paramedic scissors 
Green plastic disposable tweezers 
A bag of six safety pins 

... and one black wall bracket in case you want to mount it onto the wall.

The kit is really comprehensive and so well stocked. It has the essentials and then actually quite specialised items; I wouldn’t have expected things such as an emergency foil blanket, the Burnshield dressing – a special dressing for burns and scalds, which provides protection against infection and minimises trauma and skin damage – and the hydrogel, which is used to treat burns, scalds and sunburn. A conforming bandage, by the way, is a bandage that  ‘conforms to any body shape.’ I had to look this up!

At £22.00 I think this is outstanding value as there is simply so much in there.

The only minor criticism I have is that the plasters are all the same size. That said, for larger wounds there are many types of dressings and gauze.

Call Millie’s Trust Contact Information

Website at www.milliestrust.com
Email at info@milliestrust.com

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