Child's Simple Injuries Care

How should a parent care for a child’s simple injuries?

Robin Vick: When looking at, let’s say a child falls and there is some trauma to the skin, lots of times it’s the knees, lots of times, it might be the elbows – the skin can be scrapped, in other words, there is no linear tear to the skin but just minor scrapping of the top layers of some of the skin, that something that you can take care of at home. Make sure that you know, you just remain calm and gentle with the child. Gently irrigate the cut, the scrap with soap and water and you can use a soft cloth if there is any dirt on the skin to help remove that, that’s important. Then, if it’s bleeding, the important way to know if that needs attention or not is to apply pressure to the surface of the body that’s been injured. If the bleeding stops after pressure for fifteen minutes, then it’s a situation that doesn’t need a doctor’s attention.

If however when you have a wound, if the child’s fallen and more or less torn a piece of skin, the wound will show that the edges are open. If the surface of the skin has been torn and edges of the wound are not together, then a doctor should look at it and decide if some suturing or some non-suturing techniques are needed to hold the skin together.

Secondly if there is any injury to the face or to the lips, these are often sites on the body that bleed profusely and often because the skin is so thin, it may relax and the wound could be open, striking about the -- looking to make sure that the edges of the wound are touching. Any scrape or tear to the face is something that most parents would want to have a doctor look at.

So, the ability to stop bleeding most wounds that you take care of at home, if they stop bleeding in fifteen minutes, just cover them with, you know, clean them with soap and water, get them nice and clean and then apply a dry bandage over the top. Sometimes, you can put a little bit of antibiotic ointment on the skin if you think that it’ll help keep that clean, that something that you don’t need to have a doctor to recommend.


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