How Does Indoor Humidity and Temperature Affect Babies?

cold and dry weather effects for babies

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Extremely high temperatures and high humidity, make your child’s natural body cooling system to fail. It can make the internal heat of your baby to build up to dangerous levels, making them susceptible to heat-related illnesses. However, extremely low humidity and the temperature is also not good for your child’s health. So what is the best room temperature and humidity for your baby? In this piece, we will discuss this and the impact of the different conditions on young children.

Hot and Humid Weather Dangers for Children

Hot and humid weather can make your child feel too sweaty. While you may think this is normal, the air might become suffocating for your child before you even notice it. High temperature is okay, but when it escalates to too much, and it becomes unusually high, it can cause heat illnesses to your children. Let’s look into the dangers of hot and humid weather for your children.

1. Heat Cramps

In a nutshell, this is a heat illness that occurs due to unusually high temperatures. It occurs during a tough exercise done in high temperatures. As such, if your children are too playful during hot weather, they can quickly get heat cramps. They are more prone to heat cramps if they have not been taking enough fluids.

When your child gets heat cramps, let them rest in a cool room and make them drink plenty of fluids. Moreover, giving them a massage may also come in handy.

2. Heat Exhaustion

It is a more severe illness than heat cramps that occurs when a person in hot and humid weather has not been taking enough fluids. Therefore, if your child is dehydrated during hot and humid weather, he or she is more likely to get the illness.

However, while heat exhaustion is a more severe illness, you should not panic when your child has is affected. Bring your child home, loosen their clothing, and encourage them to eat, drink, and rest. However, if your child is too exhausted or looks too ill, you should call your doctor. Besides, IV fluids may be necessary.

3. HeatStroke

Heatstroke is the most severe heat illness that can be life-threatening. As such, it should be treated as a medical emergency. It occurs when a person’s body is unable to regulate its temperature leading to brain damage or death if there is no fast response.

The prompt medical response is necessary to control body temperature adequately. Your child can get heatstroke when they overdress in hot, humid weather, or they are involved in an extreme physical exertion, with inadequate fluid intake.

Moreover, your child can get a heatstroke when you leave them inside a car on a hot, humid day. If it’s hot outside, the temperatures in the car are likely to escalate to dangerous levels in less than 30 minutes. If your child gets a heatstroke, you may notice his/her skin turn red. Decreased responsiveness and loss concentration are few common symptoms as well.

When this happens, call for emergency medical services immediately. While waiting for help, do not give your child fluids.

Cold and Dry Weather Impacts For children

Because children have a larger surface area to body ratio, their heat loss is significantly faster that of adults. When you immerse your child in water during cold and dry weather, the exceptionally high thermal conductivity of water, makes the child lose significant body heat through conduction. It may result in many health disasters for young children. We have listed the impacts of cold and dry weather conditions on young children below.

hot and humid weather effects for babies

1. Hypothermia

A child is more susceptible to hypothermia in cold and dry weather, because of the big surface area to body mass ratio. This makes children more prone to excessive and faster heat loss. Moreover, if your child’s nutrition is not okay, it makes their insulating fat under the skin thinner, therefore, making them even more prone to the illness.

2. Frostbite

Because of the enhanced peripheral vasoconstriction in children, they may be more prone to frostbite than adults. Frostbite is damage to a part of the body, due to freezing in cold weather. The most common places you are likely to find frostbites in children are the fingers, toes, and ears. Some of its symptoms include red skin color and skin that tingles.

3. Bronchoconstriction

This condition makes the smooth muscles of the bronchus to contract, making breathing difficult. Bronchoconstriction may occur to your child during cold, dry weather, and it is more severe if your child has asthma. If your child has contracted this illness, you will notice some coughing and shortness of breath. Therefore, you should take your child for further checkups and treatment if you suspect they have contracted bronchoconstriction to avoid any further severe complications.

There are several steps you can take to ensure that cold and dry weather, have minimal adverse effects for your child.

  • While swimming, small children should be allowed to come out of the water every 15 minutes to avoid hypothermia.
  • If your child has asthma, ensure their nose is covered by a surgical mask to prevent breathing in cold, dry air, which could cause bronchoconstriction.
  • An asthmatic child should not be allowed to go out on exertion activities on cold days.
  • Ensure your child wears several layers of clothing when they go out. Gloves and stockings help protect their fingers and toes.

Ideal Indoor Temperature and Humidity Level for the Children

Many parents often confused about the ideal room temperatures and humidity levels for their babies. Below you’ll find the ideal temp and humidity levels you need to observe for your child.

Ideal Humidity

Ideal indoor humidity for a child is 40-60%, mainly because bacteria will not grow in this range. How your child’s room is constructed is a significant factor in determining the humidity in that room. Keep in mind, high humidity in your child’s room can also enable the growth of molds, which is not very healthy. The controlled use of a humidifier or a dehumidifier can help in raising and dropping the humidity levels in a child’s room, to the ideal range. Ensure that you also use a humidifier to raise humidity for your baby to the ideal level.

In winter, the humidity in your child’s room is likely to drop significantly. Lower humidity, make children more prone to nose bleeding and other unpleasant complications. Therefore, you must have a humidifier to raise the air to ideal humidity for baby room in winter. Additionally, you should also note that both high and low humidity, could cause severe flare-ups, to children with eczema.

Ideal Temperature

When it comes to your baby’s room temperature, you don’t want the levels to be too low or too high. Keep the temperatures within the ideal range. Primarily, if you feel that the house is too cold, your baby will too, and if you think it is too hot, so will your baby. Therefore, you need to keep the temperature within the ideal range, which is 68-72 degrees F(20-22.2℃), both for summer and winter. It would be best if you kept an AC heater in your child’s room and a fan to regulate the temperatures when they go out of the normal range.

How to Monitor the Living Environment for Your Baby at Home?

Many parents find it challenging to monitor the conditions of the house to ideal standards, while at the same time catering for the child. The indoor baby room temperature and humidity monitor, come in handy because it continuously tracks the room temperature and humidity. One such device is the ThermoPro Indoor Thermometer and Hygrometer.

ThermoPro indoor thermometer & hygrometer

When you set the thresholds for the humidity and the temperature of the room, the Indoor Thermometer and Hygrometer will give you notifications when the conditions exceed or go below your settings. It enables you always to know whether the indoor conditions are within the ideal range for your child’s well being. Based on the reading on the indoor thermometer and hygrometer, adjust the conditions accordingly to keep your child comfortable. The ThermoPro Indoor Thermometer and Hygrometer, has proven to be a useful and essential tool, in monitoring the conditions inside the house.

In summary, both ideal humidity and temperature are essential for a child’s well being. You need to ensure that they are within the ideal range at all times. If you do this, you will be able to avoid additional hospital bills arising from medical conditions that these factors bring along. Be sure to buy and use the ThermoPro Indoor Thermometer and Hygrometer, for monitoring the conditions in your baby’s room. Many people who have used the thermometer, attest that it is the best in the market for monitoring indoor temperature and humidity.

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