Gosia Campbell: Hi! I would like to ask you about burns. What would have happened if he pulls up a hot cup of tea over himself, what should I do then?
Linda Cray: Well, what you could you remember is that even if it's not that hot, it could cause a problem because his skin isn't as strong as us if you like. If it does happen, what we need to do is make sure the tea is out in the way so it doesn't cause any further problem. Then we need to get his clothing that might be soaked in tea, remove it. Have a look at the burn area. If it is bigger than the size of his hand or if there's any breaks in the skin, you need to take him to the hospital or if there's any broken skin in burnt area. If there isn't, then you can calm him down. Make sure you are trying to stay calm yourself, which obviously you don't want to be, but try to, and calm him down. And if the burn area is small enough, you'll be able to just cool it down and that will be fine. But if it's larger than his hand or there's broken skin and so, you need to take him to the hospital. Don't put anything else on there apart from water.
With any burn, all you should ever use is a cooling down substance i.e. water. Lukewarm water, not freezing cold, it makes them too cold, frightened, etcetera. You shouldn't put things like cream, butter etcetera on them which people do for the best reasons but you're actually creating a frying element if you like. So, you're frying the child's skin.
You can put something clean on it after just like a tea towel, nothing that's fluffy that might stick to the burn, because he tend to weep slightly because he is putting everything in his mouth. And nothing that's going to stick to it and if you could -- nothing at all, you could either put a piece of cream film on to the burnt area. You wrap it around the burn area, but you need to make sure it doesn't wrapped around the whole of the leg, if it was the leg that was burnt because what will happen with the burn, is that it will swell and if you wrap it right the way around, there's no room for it to swell and it can cause problems.
So, bear in your mind, use something like cream film which will stop infection but make sure there's a gap for the swelling to happen.
A cup of tea at the time, you are having chat with your friends whatever, child coming up on your lap, it can end in tears. So try and prevent that, try and put safety elements into the house. But if the worst happens, get the child away, if it's something like hot fat, hot liquid you need to take the child's clothing off because the hot fat, hot liquid is in the clothing still burning. If it's like something from burn from a flame, something like that, what you might find is the child's clothing is actually melted and if that has happened, it can actually stick to the skin and it would be wrong to try and pull it off because you can make further injures. So you need to decide what kind of a burn it is. If it's still hot and in the clothing, remove. If the clothing is sticking to the child, don't remove, cool down while the clothing is still there.
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