Image Source: Time

1. Keeping Your Baby Safe during Summer

The extremely hot conditions during summer can be tough on your little baby and make him prone to various ailments at this time, including dehydration, rashes, prickly heat, insect bites, gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and fever. So, you need to take up preventive measures to keep your baby safe from the various diseases.

• Keep Your Baby Hydrated: Increase the frequency of breastfeeding to prevent your baby from getting dehydrated. In case, your baby is formula-fed sterilize his bowl, bottle and spoon before you feed him. Consult your doctor before feeding your baby water or any other liquid.

• Cleanliness and Hygiene: Sweat generated during summer causes rashes and irritation on a baby’s delicate skin. So while bathing your baby, clean him thoroughly giving special attention to his underarms, neck and the folds in his body. Your baby’s face and hands will need cleaning throughout the day. Add neem oil to his bath.
• Dressing Your Baby: Keep your baby clothed in thin, soft and comfortable clothes. If it is too hot, he will need only a vest. In case there are mosquitoes, keep his arms covered.
• Other Summer Tips: Avoid crowded places, don’t expose your baby to sunlight and use mosquito nets to protect your baby from various diseases.

2. Keeping Your Baby Safe during Monsoon

Though the rains during monsoon bring relief from the hot summer days, it also brings along with it floods, a humid weather, mosquitoes and many diseases. Take a few precautions and keep your baby safe from the various diseases, like viral infections, dengue, leptospirosis, diarrheal diseases, respiratory illnesses and even prickly heat due to the humid weather, which are bound to come with the monsoon.

• Personal Hygiene: Keep your hands clean. Wash them after you change your baby’s diapers and ensure that people around your baby, like a babysitter, also stay clean. People coming to visit your baby should also be clean and wash their hands before they approach your baby.

• Keeping Your Baby Clean: Sweat due to the humid weather may lead to fungal infections, allergies and skin rashes. Ensure that your baby stays clean and give him a sponge bath once a day. Clean him the natural way by adding neem oil, which is a disinfectant, to his bath.
• Dressing your Baby Right: If it is humid, give him loose cotton clothes and when cold, clothe your baby in a cardigan or jacket. Make sure his clothes are not damp due to the rainy weather and also not moldy from staying in moist cupboards.
• Keeping Food and Drinks Clean: Use boiled water for drinking and making the baby’s food. Continue to nurse your baby if you are breastfeeding him as this will boost his immune system and keep him safe from many diseases. Wash his feeding bottles, dishes, and plates with boiled water before and after using them.
• Keeping Away Mosquitoes: Stagnant water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and is the carriers of diseases like dengue and malaria. Use mosquito nets or other natural mosquito repelling agents to protect your child from these diseases.

3. Immunizing Your Baby

Immunization is the best way that you can protect your child from various diseases . Vaccinate your baby and keep him safe from fourteen serious childhood diseases – Haemophilus influenza type B, Diphtheria, Hepatitis A and B, Influenza, measles, which can cause pneumonia and encephalitis, Mumps, Pertussis also known as whooping cough, Pneumococcal disease, Polio, Rubella or German measles, Rotavirus and Varicella, Tetanus or Lockjaw, or chickenpox.

Ensure that your child is vaccinated every time and is taking all the doses as per his immunization schedule to be safe from various diseases. Missing a dose leaves your child vulnerable to some serious disease.

Germs like micro-organisms can cause problems for your baby. So, you need to be careful and take precautions to ensure that your young one is safe from any health hazard. Click here to learn more about how to keep your baby safe from various diseases.