With a new born in your family, not only your joy but responsibilities also increase manifold. Taking care of his/her health is now your prime aim after you have become parents. From now on, you will have to keep an eye on their health as they are more prone to diseases. They can easily catch infections and become ill. But if you take precautions and keep a check on the little one’s health then he/she will grow up to become a healthy child.
Important Facts About Children
It is imperative to know some of the health facts about a child. This will make the picture clear and let you focus on his health more importantly.
- The single largest reason of death in children less than five years is Pneumonia.
- The number of children suffering from acute malnutrition is around 20 million.
- The danger of child dying is highest in his/her life’s first month. And, the number of death in first month is more than three million.
- In Africa, a child dies due to malaria every minute.
- In developing nations, one of the major reasons of diseases is diarrhea.
- round two-thirds of child’s death can be avoided.
- More than 90% HIV infected children catch the infection from mother- to- child transmission.
When You Need to Worry?
Children may become seriously ill even because of a seemingly non-dangerous infection or disease. And, this condition might prove to be dangerous for them. So, never overlook even slightest of uneasiness in the child. Here are some of the conditions that demand urgent medical help of a doctor.
If the child:
- is unreasonably cold or hot.
- vomits and it is in green color and he/she cries nonstop due to pain.
- has blood coming in his/her urine.
- has a temperature of more than 39°C for 30 minutes or more.
- unusually restless or looks drowsy or quiet.
- has rapid and noisy breathing.
- is speaking in low volume for one day.
- does not eat anything for two meals or remains hungry for more than six hours.
Health Care for Toddlers (0-2)
Taking care of the child is your most crucial responsibility. Focus on his/her health according to his age. A number of diseases and medical conditions that affect the children increase with the age.
What to Feed the Toddlers?
A baby becomes prone to infections, diseases and illness as soon as he is born. But if proper care is taken, the child can be saved from these dangerous conditions. Food is the basic consideration you need to focus on. This is because if the nutrition is right from the infant stage, there will be minimum probabilities of diseases affecting the little one.
When to start solid food?
Proper nutrition is a must for any age and becomes all the more important for new born and toddlers. When you are feeding your child at this age, you need to remember what, when and how much to feed him/her.
You can start feeding solids to your infant as soon as he/she is in the age group of four to six months. But before that the child should be breastfed only. Age is not the only deciding factor of giving solids to your infant. He must be able to hold his/her head up.
How much to Feed?
After you know the right time to start solids, you should also know what to give. Rice cereals are the most popular foods that are first given to the infant.
An infant or toddlers must be given 1 mg/kg iron every day.
When the solid food is started, the aim should be to make the child adapted to solid foods and not nutrients. Your child is learning to keep food in his mouth and swallow it. Make this quantity of solid food restricted to not more than one or two teaspoons in a day.
What to feed?
- When the toddler nears one year completion, encourage self-feeding through sipping cup and self-feeding meals. If the child is not at all interested in having more don’t force him. He/she will tell you when he/she is full.
- After one year, give milk in the bottle to your little one. Full fat cow milk might be a good option for the toddler. This is the time you have to be extra careful when giving something to eat as he might grumble and not eat anything. It is because of the teething trouble and related illness. They want to focus on learning new things than eat something. But you don’t have to worry as the little one will definitely eat when he/she is hungry.
- After age of two, your toddler may now have any food like any other person. Make it a point to include fruits, lean protein, properly cut vegetables, whole grains, reduced-fat dairy foods and other healthy foods. Your child might not like these new inclusions; don’t force them. Instead, give them these foods in little quantities to start with alongside their favorite food.
- Develop healthy eating habits in them to make their immune system strong from chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer or heart diseases etc.
The need for you as a parent is to take complete care of what your little one eats and whether he eats something at all. It is because your toddler might turn out to be fussy on eating. You don’t have to have a harsh hand or panic, just introduce new and healthy things so that he/she will eat them without grumbling.
Never ever ignore even little warning indications like- his end to physical activity, lying down without any reason, looking lethargic or any such sign. If you witness these unusual changes in your little one, at once take him to the doctor. Take care of your child with important focus on every detail and bring him up to be a healthy person.
