Most Common Winter Diseases: How to Prevent Winter Illnesses and Keep Your Kids Healthy

What are the most common winter diseases and how to prevent winter illnesses and keep your kids healthy during winter?

The body's immune system is weakened during the winter season due to the severe cold and the rapid spread of germs and bacteria. This makes humans more susceptible to viral diseases that can develop in serious cases if they are not treated quickly. 
The most common winter diseases are common colds, flu, sore throat, fever, bronchitis, arthritis, and pneumonia. 
In this article, we will discuss how to prevent winter diseases and give you some important nutritional advice that will help you and your families prevent winter diseases, without resorting to harmful medications.

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Most common winter diseases: How to prevent winter illnesses and keep your kids healthy during the winter season

Most Common Winter Diseases: How to Prevent Winter Illnesses and Keep Your Kids Healthy During Winter

Most Common Winter Diseases

We are in winter and the weather is unstable, nights are cold, and in such conditions, the immune system weakens and the body becomes more susceptible to disease.

Since the bodies of children and infants are weak, they are more prone to infectious diseases or diseases in general. 
Usually, the cause of these diseases, viruses transmitted from person to person through sneezing and cold (runny nose), and spread in the air in nurseries, workplaces and closed public places.

The most common human diseases in winter include:

1. Common Colds: Cold is one of the most common diseases that a person suffers in winter, as a result of exposure to cold air, and some of the harmful bacteria that spread in this season. 
Its symptoms are summarized by: Sporadic aches in the body, severe headache in the head and around the eyes, runny nose, sneezing, and coughing.

2. Influenza: Influenza is one of the most serious and most life-threatening diseases of winter, because it causes death to many people in the world every year, especially if it is not treated quickly. 
The symptoms of flu are: tiredness and extreme fatigue, dry cough, headache, sharp rise in temperature.

3. Fever: Fever is a kind of unpleasant disease that affects the body in winter due to the entry of some viruses causing the disease to the human body. 
The symptoms of fever are summarized as follows: cough associated with heavy sputum, a sharp rise in temperature, feeling cold and chills,  aches in the joints of the body and inability to move.

4. Bronchitis: Bronchitis is a common complication of measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, flu, typhoid fever, and other bacterial infections. 
Acute bronchitis occurs in the nose and pharynx, where a myriad of germs are ready to make their way into the airways to cause trouble. 
In many cases, acute bronchitis arises as a complication of the common cold. Exposure to cold as a result of not wearing enough clothes leads to bronchitis, thus weakening the body's resistance and germs benefit from that opportunity to penetrate the protective tissue. 
The early symptoms of acute bronchitis are a mild fever, mild headache, trembling, roughness or wheezing, persistent coughing and a feeling that something lies behind the breastbone.

5. Arthritis: During winter, a person is exposed to the problem of arthritis and its severe aches, as a result of the body being affected by low heat and cold. 
The symptoms of arthritis are: severe body aches and inability to walk, joint stiffness, especially knees.

6. Sore throat: During the winter, people often get a sore throat, as a result of cold air entering the nasopharynx through inhalation, as well as an infection. 
Sore throat symptoms are summarized by: severe soreness in the joints and feet, redness of the throat and inability to swallow, cases of shivering and cold.

7. Pneumonia: Pneumonia is a pollution of the lungs, which can generate a very bad feeling. Pneumonia causes coughing, fever (high body temperature) and breathing difficulties. 
In most cases, pneumonia can be treated at home without the need for hospitalization. Symptoms of pneumonia, caused by the bacterium, appear quickly, often. They include: Trembling and chills, which causes dental contact, cough, fever, breathing difficulties, chest pain, fast heartbeats, feeling tired or exhausted, nausea and vomiting.

How can You Prevent Winter Diseases?

Here are the most important tips to prevent you from winter diseases. To prevent winter diseases in general you should:

➧Drink more water and natural juices that strengthen your immune system.

➧Receive flu vaccinations before the winter season.

➧Not to be in crowded places where harmful viruses abound.

➧Avoid processed foods that harm your immune system.

➧Not to sit in indoor areas where smoking is frequent.

➧Wear woolen clothes that provide warmth to the body.

➧Do not leave the house except in cases of necessity, especially during the snowstorms.

➧Ventilate the house on a daily basis, to get rid of contaminated air in it.

➧Maintain personal hygiene and food hygiene at home, wash hands before eating and immediately out of the toilet.

➧Drink a glass of cold water before leaving the house.

➧Exercise daily for half an hour.

How to Keep Your Kids Healthy During Winter?

Here are some tips to prevent your children from getting winter diseases and keep your kids healthy during winter:

Take care of your sick child without getting others: It is preferable to separate a sick child and healthy children at home, especially at bedtime. A sick child should not sleep with healthy children in the same room.

Maintain personal hygiene: Personal items such as toys, cups, spoons, special towels or napkins may not be exchanged.

Keep the window open: Winter viruses are present in the air when coughing or sneezing, a huge amount of viruses and germs are released that can survive for several hours, which leads to the transmission of infection to other children. 
In winter, it is okay to open your windows to increase airflow and reduce the number of airborne viruses. It is harmful to let you keep the cool temperature inside the room in winter. 
It is, therefore, best to keep a window open, even if the weather is winter and cold, to reduce the concentration of viruses and germs in the air. 
Prefer your children to wear an extra layer of clothing, but stay in the room for ventilation.

Wash your hands: Make sure to wash your hands before eating anything. Viruses are always present, even when eating an apple, a biscuit or a whole meal. Teach your children to wash their hands properly.

Keep your house safe for children: Make sure to clean sensitive areas that your children particularly touch, such as floors, utensils, low cupboards, tables, chairs and door handles.

Healthy Foods You Should Eat to Prevent Winter Diseases

Colorful vegetables: Make sure your children eat daily with plenty of colorful vegetables, which contain antioxidants. Antioxidants help strengthen the immune system.

Winter fruits: It is important to ensure that your children eat the kinds of fruits available in the winter, such as citrus fruits, kiwi and guava. These species are rich in vitamin C, as well as magnesium-rich bananas.

Ketchup: If your children are ordering tomato paste (ketchup), this is good. Ketchup and other tomato sauces contain chemical-light chemicals called lycopene, an excellent antioxidant that boosts the immune system.

Chicken soup: You and your kids can enjoy hot chicken soup. In addition to being healthy, it improves mood. When you try to prevent your children from becoming dehydrated, due to vomiting and diarrhea in the winter (due to rotavirus), it is advised to give your children, as early as possible, the balanced saline solutions ready for drinking.

Food additives: For children up to one year of age, be sure to follow the recommendations on giving your children food additives, such as Vitamin D, especially in winter, as children do not expose enough to the sun. 
Vitamin D is important for healthy bones, teeth, and is essential for calcium absorption and prevention of rickets (a disease that causes softening and warp of bones). 
Be sure to give your children iron supplements since they reach the fourth month, which is essential for the activity of the body systems and brain development in children.

Additional Tips for Staying Healthy During the Winter Season

➣Allow the young to discharge their energies. In winter, most of us tend to consume food and sit down to watch TV programs without physical activity. 
Physical activity contributes to the release of substances known as endorphins in the body, which help to strengthen the immune system and improve the body's ability to fight diseases. 
After physical activity, make sure your little ones get enough rest and sleep. Sleep and rest are essential for growth and development in children, and they enable the body to clean the organs and boost the immune system.

➣Fever is not an adequate reason in itself to expedite a doctor's visit. Most fever diseases in children over 2 years of age are mild, fade spontaneously and do not require medication. 
It is worth noting that visiting your clinic with your child may expose you to the risk of developing various diseases, and sometimes you may have much more severe disease than you complain about. 
It is preferable to consult your family doctor and ask about the diseases and health conditions that require a doctor visit. 
In other cases, it is possible to use antipyretic preparations according to the recommended doses. If the fever does not disappear, then go to the clinic for assistance.

➣It is advisable to keep the child at home if he is sick. One sick child in a nursery or school may infect many of his peers, which may delay you from going to work, but in the end, if you prevent the transmission of other children.  
This will not infect your child again it has recovered. In addition, the sick child does not enjoy being in the nursery and requires special attention.

➣Remember that with the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the weather is volatile, it may start a hot day and end with storms and rain. 
So it is preferable to keep with you warm clothes for fear of changing the weather if you spend long hours with your children away from home.