Germs Are Everywhere: 5 Easy Steps to Protect Yourself
Did you know that the flu virus can live on a hard surface — such as a door knob, keyboard, TV remote, telephone, pen, gym equipment, chip bowl, arm rest, gas pump, ATM, elevator button, etc. — for up to eight hours? Or that the flu virus can live on paper money for up to 17 days?
Think about how many of those items you touch in a single day. Now consider one of them – say a gas pump — and imagine: How many other people have touched that same gas pump in the past eight hours?
As a family medicine physician, I want to write this to give moms a concise guideline of what is recommended to keep you healthy for your families. The medical world can be difficult to navigate, so my goal is to give you a snapshot of what you need to do to make sure you are up to date! To be able to take care of your family, you’ve first got to take care of yourself!
Vaccines help protect babies and young children against 14 serious diseases before their 2nd birthday. Even though you are keeping her safe from diseases, it’s hard to see your child cry when she gets her shots. But you can take some steps before, during, and after a vaccine visit to ease the short-term pain and stress of getting shots.
You want to do what is best for your children. You know about the importance of car seats, baby gates and other ways to keep them safe. But did you know that one of the best ways to protect your children is to make sure they have all of their vaccinations?
Immunization gives parents the safe, proven power to protect their children from 14 serious and potentially deadly diseases before they turn 2 years old.
From the moment you found out you were pregnant, you started protecting your baby. You might have changed the way you eat, started taking a prenatal vitamin, and researching the kind of car seat you’ll buy. But did you know that one of the best ways to start protecting your children against serious diseases is by making sure you get the whooping cough (Tdap) and flu vaccines while you are pregnant?
As parents, we recognize the importance of reading labels. I’m just as guilty as the next person: Follow me around the grocery store during my weekly shopping trip, and you’ll see that I’m definitely one of those people who stands in the aisles reading labels of every packaged food I buy, and I quickly reject anything that has a laundry list of ingredients with a lot of unfamiliar, unpronounceable items.
It is true that some vaccine ingredients could be toxic…at much higher doses. But any substance — even water or the sun — can be toxic given a large enough dose. And at a very low dose, even a highly toxic substance can be safe. Just look at Botox — one of the most toxic substances known to humanity — which is injected in small quantities into a person’s face to reduce wrinkles.
