Well, all my nursing professors would be so excited that I am blogging about HANDWASHING! It seems so simple and yet it does so much. I thought that since I am a nurse and since this is a crazy bad season for colds, flu, RSV, and other things, that I would share a quick health tip for everyone. HANDWASHING is one of the most important things you can do to prevent disease. Pretty crazy huh? It's true. Most of the viruses such as colds and flu can just be prevented by washing your hands or using PURELL hand sanitizer. Our hospital did a study and found that the PURELL brand of hand sanitizer killed the most germs. So when it says kills 99.9%-it seems to be correct. Anyway, back to hand washing. Especially for kids-it is important to teach good handwashing since they are the main carriers a lot of times for germs. A great way to get them to wash their hands and learn at the same time is to have them sing a song while they wash. Try the ABC's or Happy Birthday or Twinkle Twinkle. It is not really the soap-although ANTIMICROBIAL does kill stuff-it is actually the friction caused by rubbing your hands together. The temperature is not always a huge factor either-lukewarm-especially for kids is fine. For those of you with new babies-always make sure that people either wash their hands or use hand sanitizer before they hold your baby. You never know where they have been and since babies are at a greater risk for sickness-who wants to take the risk. So, as cheesy as this is, hopefully it will help decrease the amount of colds and flu in your house. HAPPY HANDWASHING!
3 comments:
Yeah! I totally agree. Now if I could get my boys to agree. Many of them don't even have soap next to their bathroom sinks. Ewwwww.
Kim you are awesome, I prefer to sing the busdriver song but that is just me. You should see the looks i get at work, oh well at least i have clean hands right. Well friend have a happy handwashing day, you rock!
Thanks for the reminder, Kim. The nurses in the hospital were big on this topic too (must be a nurse thing) :) My hands currently feel like sandpaper because of all of the handwashing I do with Madelyn around. My question is, how does one keep all of that washing from wrecking one's skin? Lotion is a waste since I just wash it off a few minutes later.
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