colds and flus
DESCRIPTION
http://www.fridayschildmontessori.com/blog/colds-and-flus Symptoms of a cold include mild fever and illness, a runny nose, sneezes, slight headaches and coughs. The bad bits of colds only last a few days. Symptoms of the flu include muscle aches, bad headaches, high fever and a dry cough, and flu lasts a week. See your doctor if you suspect flu. Treatment for both illnesses involves bed rest, paracetamol and keeping up the fluid intake. Home remedies often help.TRANSCRIPT
Colds and Flus www.fridayschildmontessori.com
So your child is under the
weather and doesn’t feel like
coming along to join us at
Friday’s Child Montessori.
You think that he or she has a
cold or the flu and think that
it’s best that he or she doesn’t
go today.
Good move – whether it’s a cold
or the flu, it’s best to keep
your child home if he or she is
sick so all the other children at
the early childhood centre don’t
get it.
Should you be getting in touch
with your local GP?
Montessori principles advocate
sharing – but there are some
things that we really, really
don’t want you to share!) But
does your child just have a cold
or does he or she have the flu?
Colds and flus have a lot in
common. They are both spread
by viruses rather than bacteria.
Viruses and bacteria are lumped
together as “germs” when you’re
explaining about the principles of
hygiene to a child, but they
aren’t the same thing.
Bacteria are single-celled
organisms that reproduce by
splitting in the same way that
amoebae do, and there are some
“helpful” bacteria around, like
the ones that live in your insides
and keep your intestines healthy;
the yeasts in bread;
and the bacteria that ferment
wine, cheese and yoghurt.
Viruses, on the other hand,
reproduce by sneaking into your
cells and using their mechanisms
to reproduce – they squirt their
DNA into the nucleus of one of
your cells,
like a cuckoo laying eggs in
another bird’s nest. Unless you
count the viruses that are used
for genetic modification (and
that’s a controversial topic),
there are few helpful ones, if
any.
At this point, you might be
asking, so what?
Why is it important to know
that colds and flus are spread by
viruses instead of bacteria?
Well, it’s only bacterial
infections that you can fight
with antibiotics.
Antibiotics don’t do diddley-
squat to help deal to viral
infections. In fact, if you try
fighting a virus with antibiotics,
the only thing you’re going to do
is increase the chance of
superbugs developing,
superbugs being dangerous bacteria
that are resistant to antibiotics.
A number of worried parents have
tried asking the doctor for
antibiotics when their child
has a nasty cold, but
this isn’t
the best thing.
Both the cold and flus share a
few symptoms and they both
are spread by various
insanitary habits such as not
washing hands properly,
sharing food and drink items,
picking noses and so forth.
However, the flu is a lot more
dangerous than a cold. People
can die from the flu –
look at what happened in a lot
of the Western world shortly
after World War 1 (as if enough
people hadn’t died already!):
fatalities of this particular strain
of the flu are in the millions,
making it about as big a medical
disaster as the Plague in the
Middle Ages or AIDS in Africa
today.
Keep your child away from colds
and flus. If symptoms occur,
consult your GP.