Protect Your Kids from Colds

Children and colds—the two seem to go together. The average child catches about six to 10 colds each year. Children seem to get the most colds in their first two years, but the incidence decreases as a child gets older. Children who have siblings seem to have more colds. Spending time in day care and school also seems to up the number of colds a child may get.

Colds are not caused by cold or wet weather. Even so, they peak during the fall and winter months, when many children attend school. Spending more time indoors probably makes children likelier to pass around the viruses that cause colds. During the months when humidity is low, the air dries out nasal passages, making them more likely to become infected.

To lower the cold quota at your house during this year’s cold season, follow these tips:

• Encourage or help your children to wash their hands after wiping their noses and before eating. Hand washing is the simplest way to protect children—and adults—from colds.
• Wash your own hands after wiping your child’s runny nose.
• Help your young children sneeze or cough into a tissue, then throw it away immediately afterward.

Treatment Tips

Don’t treat your child’s cold with aspirin. Children who take aspirin during a viral illness risk developing Reye’s syndrome, which could be life threatening. Instead, give them acetaminophen to reduce headache or fever.