Health Matters: Dress Lightly To Counter The Effects Of Warm Weather – Expert
By Francis Ezediuno
With the recent unpredictable weather condition in most parts of the country particularly in the State of Osun, residents have been advised to wear light clothing, drink lots of water, sleep in cross ventilated rooms, eats lots of fruits and ensure they take their bath at least twice a day.
This should be done to counter the effects of the heat in order to prevent heat-related sicknesses particularly amongst children.
This advice was handed down by Mrs. Esther Oke, a retired matron in a chat recently where she cautioned on the effects of the abnormal weather condition on the healthy and well being of individuals.
She revealed that the human body being that of mammal has temperature regulatory abilities.
According to her, “when the weather is cold, the body sends signals to the brain; the Central Nervous System and immediately it regulates and when the weather is hot, same thing happens again.
“This occurs so as to keep the body temperature at a balance for effective functioning of the body system.
“Just like a car, when the temperature is too hot or too cold, it may affect the smooth functioning of the body organs.
“In order to aid this, we also need to protect ourselves. When the weather is too cold, we put on warm clothing and when it is too warm, we put on loose or light clothing.
“In the light of this, we are advising parents to especially not be deceived by the coolness of the morning and nights to dress their children up in warm and choking clothing but rather to wear on them light clothes that will allow them to feel the fresh air”.
She added that since the air was light, the warmness of it is both choking and uncomfortable which may adversely affect the comfortability of children.
“It is this times that children need to drinks lots of water and eats lots of fruits. The water they take in large quantities will replace the one they excrete through sweats and urine and thus their body remain hydrated all through.
“When they sweat and urinate and fail to replace by drinking lots of water, they may dehydrate and this is how other problem brewing. Parents must try at all costs to avoid this.
“At nights too, they should sleep in properly ventilated rooms. If there is fan, it should be turned on at full speed and in the case of power outages, the curtains should be drawn back to allow for continual flow of fresh and cool breeze”.
She cautioned parents who still use warm water to bath their children as wanting to cause more harm to them, adding that they should allow their children to shower with cool water some minutes after coming back from school in the afternoon.
“Children who are just back from school in the afternoon should be allowed to cool off a bit before being ushered into the bathroom to bath.
“The reason for this is so that their body temperature would have been regulated before dowsing them with cool water. If they hurriedly immediately after coming back from school, it could send the wrong signal to the Central Nervous System and cause some damage to the child”.
