The baby spends most of the time indoors, so maintaining the right temperature in the room for the newborn is the most important condition for his comfortable well-being.
Air temperature
According to most pediatricians, the optimal air temperature for a newborn should not exceed 22 ° C. Some pediatricians advise not to teach the baby to "tropical conditions" from infancy, and provide him with natural hardening, lowering the temperature to 18-19 ° C. Do not be frightened if you are uncomfortable at this temperature - as a rule, in an adult, the natural mechanisms of thermoregulation are disturbed due to an incorrect lifestyle. The infant is able to naturally adapt to the surrounding conditions. Most parents are more afraid of child's hypothermia than overheating, and therefore, they create all conditions for the baby not to freeze. Often one can observe this fact: the more prosperous a family is, and the more grandparents surround a baby, the more "greenhouse" conditions of existence are created for him, and on the contrary, in most unfavorable families no one is worried about the room temperature at all, and, as a rule, there children are sick less.
Why can not the child overheat?
In a newborn child with an imperfect thermoregulation system, the metabolism is very active, and this is accompanied by significant heat production. From the "surplus" heat the child gets rid through the lungs and skin. Therefore, the higher the temperature of the inhaled air, the less heat through the lungs is lost by the body. Consequently, the child begins to sweat, while losing the necessary water and salt.
On the skin of a child who is hot, redness and intertrigo appear in places of folds. The child begins to suffer from abdominal pain due to loss of water and the wrong process of digesting food, and nasal breathing can be disturbed by the appearance of dry crusts in the nose.
It is very important that the temperature of the air of a newborn is determined not by the sensations of adults, but by a thermometer that is better to hang in the area of a baby crib.
What if I can not control the temperature?
The air temperature in a room in a newborn can not always be changed in the right direction. The room rarely is less than 18 degrees, most often the temperature is higher than desired due to the hot season or the heating season. You can protect your child from overheating in the following ways:
- minimum number of clothes;
- dopaivanie water;
- organization of water procedures.
The air temperature in the room directly affects the sleep of the newborn. Thanks to active metabolism, newborns can not freeze. That is, if the child sleeps in a cool room with a temperature of 18-20 ° C in the sliders and the swing, it will be much more comfortable than if it is wrapped in a blanket at a temperature above 20 ° С.
The temperature of the air during bathing the newborn should not differ from the temperature of the entire room. You do not need to specially warm up the bathing room, then after bathing the child will not feel the temperature difference and will not get sick.
Humidity in the room of the newborn
Along with the optimal air temperature in the room of a newborn, air humidity is of great importance. Dry air also affects the baby just as badly as an excessively high temperature: loss of body fluid, drying of the mucous membranes, dry skin. Relative air humidity should not be less than 50%, which is practically impossible in the heating season. To increase the humidity, you can install an aquarium or other containers of water, but it's easier to buy a special humidifier.
The room of the newborn should also be regularly ventilated and subjected to wet cleaning with a minimum of detergents.