What Is Bad For Dry Air?

Many mothers heard about the need to humidify the air in the room where the child sleeps and plays. Naturally, the humidifier is not a first-aid thing, but the fact that cool, moistened air is useful and helps prevent a lot of health problems is recognized by most pediatricians.

Moreover, scientists have established that high temperature combined with air dryness (humidity up to 20%) sharply increases the “heat load” on the body and causes a number of violations of its functions. Reduced humidity exacerbates the effect of microbes in adverse environmental conditions – especially in infants and young children. It is proved that the peak of bronchopulmonary morbidity falls precisely on a hot period with low humidity.

How to create an ideal microclimate?

Dry air is saturated with dust, pollen, and bacteria. Such a suspension is not only a powerful allergen but also a source of infection. Therefore, a person who inhales dry, polluted air, constantly injures his respiratory tract and lungs. Humidify the air in different ways: the old “grandmother’s” methods and modern technologies will help.

According to experts, the relative humidity in any room should be at least 55-65%. In practice, this almost does not happen: in winter, air is dried by heating devices, and in summer – by solar radiation. As a result, in the usual average apartment, the humidity indicator barely reaches 40%. To create the “right” microclimate in the room can be different. Some, for example, hang a wet cloth on a hot battery. The evaporating water perfectly moistens the air. But this method has one significant drawback: in the summer in all homes, central heating is turned off. So you can use this advice only in the cold season.

Many put in the room a few open vessels with water – a watering can for flowers, a decanter or a vase. Very good if the apartment has an aquarium. Studies conducted by German scientists have shown that lovers of aquarium fish relatively rarely suffer from diseases of the upper respiratory tract. However, it is not possible for everyone to start domestic waterfowl. This privilege is devoid of asthma and allergies. The fact is that dry food for fish is a powerful allergen, much stronger than, for example, animal hair.

Children are the most vulnerable

Bronchopulmonary system of babies has a simplified structure, and its final formation occurs only in the tenth year of life. Good oxygen ventilation requires good ventilation. It is carried out due to respiratory movements, which then increase, then reduce the volume of the lungs. These movements provide the respiratory muscles: first, the diaphragm, and secondly, the intercostal muscles.

A diaphragm, a dome-shaped respiratory muscle that delimits the thoracic and abdominal cavity, is attached to the ribs that children, unlike adults, are not located under the sharp but at right angles to the spine. This position not only does not allow the diaphragm to move along the “adult” amplitude but also leads to its rapid fatigue. Yes, and a tour of the chest (the difference in the circumference of the chest between exhalation and inspiration) at a tender age is very small.

Due to these factors, a child breathes much more often than an adult, and that is why it has a much better chance of “catching” an airborne infection, which includes ARVI. Let’s add to this that, purely anatomically, the child has narrower nasal passages and a funnel-like larynx, which makes it difficult for air to pass through edema of a very loose mucous membrane only developing larynx and trachea. To the edema are also inclined and nasal passages – narrower than in older children. Therefore, the humidity of the air is so important for babies.

What are the moisturizers?

Experts believe that it is best to increase the humidity by using special devices – whole house humidifiers.

Now a wide range of humidifiers and air purifiers are on the market. They are divided into several types depending on the operating principle: cold, steam and ultrasonic.

In cold humidifiers, the fan drives air through a wet filter, the air slightly cools and humidifies.

Steam humidifiers work by evaporating water – up to 700 grams of water per hour. They do not need a filter, however, they consume quite a lot of electricity, besides, water must be continuously added.

Whole House Humidifiers form a multitude of tiny drops of water. Through this cloud air is blown, then the filters remove dust, microparticles, microbes, and pollen of plants.