As we head to the end of May, it’s time to start thinking about summer safety.
Many people will start to enjoy summertime activities, like swimming.
“Swimming is very beneficial as far as it’s a non-impact type of exercise,” Dr. Samuel Herrera said,
Dr. Herrera is a Covenant Children’s emergency room physician.
“With even exercise in the water, you can actually burn about 500 calories an hour in the pool, just by wading and walking with a little bit of resistance,” Dr. Herrera said. “So that’s very beneficial to family and to the children as well.”
He also said to make sure you take the sunscreen with you and reapply it. “SPF of 30 would be best, reapply every 2 hours while they’re swimming as well,” he said.
Covenant Family Medicine Physician Dr. Stan Garrett has some advice when it comes to those high summer temperatures and being careful of heat stroke.
“If they start to quit sweating, they start to get goose bumps, get chills, that’s the serious nature that they’re going through heat exhaustion, heat strokes,” Dr. Garrett said. “You need to put them in a shady area, probably wrap cool moist towels around them, as well as try to encourage them to drink fluids.”
When it comes to drinking those liquids, Dr. Garrett said to make sure they’re cold.
“Cool fluids are better because they help exchange the body heat inside by the cool liquids through the stomach, so be aware when a child gets to that point, or even an adult, it’s time to get into the shade and drink some fluids and try to cool the body down,” Dr. Garrett said.
