Female Speaker: Are there things a family can do during the periods when a child is well to help prevent illnesses?
Robin Vick: There are some very basic ideas that a parent can keep in mind and simple, very essential things that any parent wants to be able to see, in a place to be able to improve their child's quality of life and potential for maintaining their wellness and their health and those things are just the simple, simple things that talk about nutrition. Make sure that you offer a variety of different foods to your child. The balanced diet is something that's very, very important; nutrition underlines all management of health and illness.
Safety, also a very important concept for families to begin to integrate into their child's life; certain environmental things are going to have to be analyzed when a family begins to; lets say introduce a new baby into the household. When the child's mobility begins to change, when their curiosity begins to make them be exploring their world; maintaining a safe environment, keeping harmful substances and dangerous situations out of the child's reach. That's some recommendations for families where they have babies and toddlers and things like that but safe situations are going to continued to be very important as the child grows and as different stages in life occur. So things like bike helmets and just if sports or something and activities that kids want to be able to choose to participate in, maintaining a safe body protection and listening to the particular recommendations of that sport may suggest. Those are things that can keep the body safe as the sport is participated in.
Also regular checkups, dental exams and eye exams and follow-ups with your pediatrician about how is the child's weight, how is their vision, are their teeth in good shape? Those are very, very important things; regular, regular visits with your doctor and then also I would like to recommend immunizations as a very essential foundation for keeping a child well. Immunizations in our century are keeping at base some very dramatic and very potentially harmful illnesses out of the child's life. So I think it's a holistic view about how to keep the child well; lots of sleep, lots of exercise, a variety of activities and then basic health maintenance are important elements.
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