Mom To Mom – Syndicated Boosting Immunity

Welcome to mom to mom. It’s back to school time, so we’re going to give you some tips on keeping your kids healthy. I’m here with Dr. Meenach and we’re talking about back to school and colds and sickness. Please help us. What can we do as parents?

Dr. Meenach:  I think the most important thing is to go in with expectations on what you’re going to expect when you go into the school year. So eight to 12 colds a year is pretty typical for most kids when they first start school, especially into kindergarten. As they get older, that gets less and less. So in the middle school, high school you’ll notice less and less illness. Things that you can do to help prevent that is first and foremost is make sure your vaccines are up to date. So every child needs a well child check every year. At that visit they should check vaccines, so if you’re unsure, you can always ask your pediatrician.
Little things like teaching your child to use a tissue, cover their mouth when they’re sneezing or coughing. Other things like washing your hands. So a child needs to learn to wash their hands for about 20 seconds. They can sing the happy birthday song, it’s a fun way to do it. Other things like eating a well balanced diet and fruits, veggies. You don’t need multivitamins if you eat a well balanced diet and then sleep at night. So eight to 10 hours a night for teens and nine to 12 at night for little kids. So making sure that you get all of those things in can help prevent illness for them.

Sarah Pannell: perfect. Perfect. Well thank you so much for joining us today. For more information, go to the mom to mom Facebook page.