HOME HEALTH GUIDE
CHILDREN’S UPSETS (By the Department of Health) In summer time—picnic time, holiday time-—the children’s routine is apt to become disorganised. A party can be followed by vomiting, and restless night, with a pale, droopy child next day, off his food. Plenty of drink, more rest the next day and early to bed that night and usually all is well. But you have always to be on the lookout when there is change from the normal in a child. If it is a runny nose, with sneezes, face hot and flushed, it may be just a cold. The wisest course is to keep the child in bed until you know he is not getting worse or developing some infectious disease. If the throat becomes sore, the restlessness and flushing stay, and the child seems sick, it may be a septic throat, but it might be diphtheria, especially if he has not been immunised and given relative protection. It might be scarlet fever. So you will keep a weather eye open for rashes. A chickenpox rash comes out early. So does a scarlet fever rash, at the end of the first or during the second day. The rash of measles comes out about the fourth day. But rashes are not always due to infectious diseases. In the hot weather a rash may be due to prickly heat. Or due to a food upset or an un-
accustomed food. Or due to bed bugs or fleas. Be guided by the type of the rash and the general state of the child. If you are unsure about a rash call the doctor. If a sore throat is a very definite symptom you will always be wiser to call the doctor because of the diphtheria risk. If you make it a rule to adopt a watchful, waiting attitude when your child is off colour—a day or half-day in bed, until you feel sure nothing serious is developing, most times the child recovers from what has been a previous day’s upset. If not, you get on to the flu or infectious disease early, and in addition limit the spread of infection in what is always the worst time for spreading troubles—the first days of a communicable disease.
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Bibliographic details
Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 67, 30 December 1946, Page 6
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374HOME HEALTH GUIDE Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 67, 30 December 1946, Page 6
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