Back To School

A lot changes as children head back to school.  The days start to grow shorter, playtime gets replaced with homework time– and everyone starts to get sick.  There are a couple of reasons that this occurs.  First, when at school your child is usually exposed to a lot more children that he or she is during the summer.  Each of these children, like your child, is more susceptible to sickness that most adults.  A child’s immune system has not yet fully developed.  Whereas an adult gets approximately four colds a year, a child, on average, will have between six and ten colds over a year.  When all of these children get put together in one classroom, colds and infections tend to spread quickly.  Another reason that your child starts to get sick more frequently when he or she goes back to school is that most children start school in the fall when the weather becomes cold and dry.  These conditions are perfect living conditions for cold and flu viruses.  Luckily, there are steps you can take to help protect children and keep them healthy.

Prevention

Preventing cold and flu viruses is a lot easier than threating these viruses.  Precautionary measures normally take just a few minutes to teach and to implement.  Trying to take care of a sick child, on the other hand, normally results in missed days of school for the child and missed days of work for the parent.  The common cold is the number one cause of children missing school, and a child being sick accounts for more missed days of work than a parent’s own sick days.  Avoiding sickness, if at all possible, is the way to go and should be a priority for families with school-aged children.  Completely avoiding sickness would be a miracle for a child, but there are ways to help ensure that your child does not catch every cold he meets at school.

With dryer weather, not only do viruses thrive, but your child’s nose, eyes, and throat become dryer, making it easier for viruses to make it past these natural barriers.  Putting a humidifier in your child’s bedroom can help to give enough moisture during the night that he or she is a little bit better protected during the day.  Encouraging healthy habits such as drinking lots of water, eating a well-balanced diet, and getting plenty of sleep are great way to help boost your child’s chances of being able to fight off infection before he or she becomes sick.  Another great way, in fact one of the best ways, to help your children avoid getting sick is to encourage them to wash their hands frequently.  Many other children will not take this precaution, which makes it all the more important that your child do so.  Another way your children can show good cold manners is to always cover their mouths when coughing and to sneeze into the crook of their elbows, rather than into their hands.  This will help to reduce the spread of germs.  Something you can do to reduce the spread of germs in your home is to take care to wash objects like doorknobs, phones, and appliances that are touched often.

Blood Tests

Often, despite all the preventative measures of which you could possibly think, your child still seems to have some new cold, flu, or infection every month.  If this is the case, it might be worth speaking with your child’s pediatrician and requesting that the doctor order a blood test for your child that will assess his or her level of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets to make sure that they are all present in the appropriate ratios.  If a child’s red and white blood cells or platelets are out of balance, it can cause your child to feel frequently fatigued and to be more susceptible to viral and bacterial infections.

The complete blood count (CBC) blood test is commonly ordered for children and, in one simple blood test, gives a fairly good picture of your child’s immune health.  If the test does show an imbalance in the blood, it might account for all the frequent colds.  More testing could then be performed to find an exact cause of the imbalance.  This is a fairly routinely ordered blood test that, when it catches an abnormality, can make all the difference in your child’s ability to have the good health and energy needed to learn and have fun during the school year.