World Immunization Day | How to enhance children's immunity? Click here to see the answer

The weather is cold in winter, and some children catch colds and cough easily. A big part of the reason is that their immunity is too poor. It is said that poor immunity makes it easy to get sick. So, if you want to enhance your child's immunity, do you know what to do specifically?

Is it better for children to have a higher immunity?

To understand this problem, we must first understand what immunity is.

Immunity refers to the body's ability to resist the invasion of various external factors and maintain the stability of the internal environment.

Immunity is a biological function of the body's immune system to non-specifically or specifically identify, reject and eliminate all foreign or antigenic substances.

Immunity includes non-specific immunity (innate immune system) and specific immunity (acquired immune system). Innate immunity is innate to an individual, such as phagocytes and some bactericidal substances in the body, which have a defensive effect on a variety of pathogens, so it is called non-specific immunity. Acquired immunity is gradually acquired by an individual during growth, and only works against a specific pathogen or foreign body, so it is called specific immunity, such as infants obtaining immune substances in the mother's placenta or colostrum, and injecting some vaccines, etc.

For humans, the human body relies on the immune function to identify and eliminate foreign invading viruses, bacteria and other foreign substances, deal with aging, damaged, and dead cells of the body, and identify and deal with mutated cells and virus-infected cells in the body, in order to maintain human health.

In layman's terms, immunity is like a soldier in our body, specifically responsible for identifying enemies that are harmful to our body and eliminating them, while also clearing out apoptotic cells in the body, thereby maintaining the stability of the human body.

People with low immunity do not have enough soldiers in their bodies to resist viral attacks and are more susceptible to illness than normal people. Therefore, the key to preventing disease is to enhance immunity.

At the same time, immunity is like blood pressure and blood sugar. Low levels are not good, but too high levels are also a disease. If immunity is too high, it will be abnormal and may overreact to substances outside the body. For example, if there are too many soldiers in the body, once an enemy is encountered, everyone will rush forward and overreact, which may cause self-injury, allergic reactions, autoimmune diseases, etc., such as allergic rhinitis, allergic eczema, allergic asthma and other symptoms. Therefore, the higher the immunity, the better.

What are the reasons for destroying children's immunity?

Parents are particularly concerned about their children's health, but some practices often undermine their children's immunity. The most common ones are as follows:

Cesarean section: The intestinal immune system is a particularly large immune system in the human body. When a child is born from the mother's body, he will be exposed to some probiotics in the mother's birth canal through the birth canal. These bacteria can colonize in the child's intestines, allowing the child to gain good immunity. However, children born by cesarean section are born in a sterilized environment and have no chance to be colonized by probiotics, so their immune function is weak. A large number of studies have found that children born by cesarean section have a higher incidence of some infectious diseases than children born vaginally.

Excessive disinfection: Excessive disinfection can also damage children's immunity. The human immune system needs to be trained. If it is too clean, children will not have the opportunity to come into contact with microorganisms, and the immune system will not be exercised. Similar to the soldiers in our body, they also recognize these microorganisms and judge which are beneficial and which are harmful by coming into contact with a small amount of non-pathogenic microorganisms. When the body comes into contact with a large number of harmful microorganisms in the future, these soldiers can immediately fight to eliminate them. If parents disinfect excessively and the children's living environment is too clean, these soldiers in the body will not be exercised, and they will lose their combat effectiveness and cannot protect the children. Some scholars have found that children living on farms rarely get hay fever (allergic rhinitis induced by pollen). The reason why these children rarely have allergies is that the lifestyle on the farm protects them, such as working in the fields, milking cows, cleaning stables, etc. This phenomenon is summarized as the "farm effect."

Abuse of antibiotics: It is wrong to use antibiotics whenever a child is sick. It is natural for parents to be very anxious when their children are sick. When a child is sick, it is important to diagnose the disease before using medication. Not all diseases require antibiotics. When the body is infected by bacteria and the human immune system cannot cope with it, antibiotics can effectively kill the bacteria. The invention of antibiotics has saved many lives. However, if it is only a viral infection, it is wrong to use antibiotics. The virus can be eliminated through the immune function. If abused, there will not only be a risk of drug resistance, resulting in no antibiotics available in the future, but also damage the body's immune function. It's like, originally these few enemies could be handled by soldiers, but you insisted on sending special forces to mop up, and as a result, the soldiers did not get exercise, and they gave up, and their combat effectiveness was weakened.

What are the effective ways to enhance children's immunity?

To enhance your child's immunity, you can start from the following aspects:

Vaccination

Vaccination has long been used to prevent infectious diseases. Vaccination is like injecting some special soldiers into the body. These soldiers are trained to have no adverse effects on the body, but can specifically eliminate certain types of germs that invade the body. When the body is infected by these germs, the soldiers targeting these germs will immediately come out to fight, eliminate the germs, and maintain the body's health.

Smallpox once became a killer of mankind. Sun Simiao, a famous doctor in Chinese history, used pus from smallpox mouth sores to apply on the skin to prevent smallpox. After the Ming Dynasty, smallpox vaccination became popular. In 1796, Edward Jenner, a British country doctor, discovered a less dangerous vaccination method. He successfully injected cowpox into an 8-year-old boy. The cowpox virus and the smallpox virus have most of the same antigens, but they are not pathogenic to the human body, allowing humans to eliminate smallpox from then on.

Taking sugar pills has eliminated poliomyelitis, immunization with hepatitis B vaccine has reduced the incidence of hepatitis in my country, and vaccination with diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccine has reduced the risk of children getting whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus... Therefore, all kinds of planned immunization vaccines after the birth of the child must be administered on time! Parents should also consider giving their children non-planned immunization vaccines.

Balanced diet

Following a healthy diet at every stage of life and ensuring all the nutrients your body needs can help boost your immunity.

Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first 6 months after the baby is born. Breast milk, especially colostrum, contains many immune substances that can enhance the child's immunity. Vitamin D should be supplemented immediately after the baby is born.

For infants aged 6 to 24 months, mothers are encouraged to continue breastfeeding while adding complementary foods to their diet. When infants are able to eat complementary foods, there is no need to avoid foods that are prone to allergies in infants. At the same time, attention should be paid to providing them with foods rich in iron and zinc, especially for breastfed infants.

Throughout the life cycle, we should follow a healthy dietary pattern to meet nutritional needs, achieve a healthy weight, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. At the same time, we should pay attention to ensuring food diversity. We should reduce the intake of foods and beverages with high added sugar, saturated fat and sodium content, and limit the intake of alcoholic beverages.

Get enough sleep

Sleep is a very important way to give the body a full rest and improve immunity. Children under 3 months old should get at least 13 hours of sleep; children between 4 and 11 months old should get at least 12 hours of sleep; children between 1 and 2 years old should get at least 11 hours of sleep; and children between 3 and 5 years old should get at least 10 hours of sleep.

Moderate exercise. The level of physical activity in children's early years is closely related to their bones, cardiopulmonary health, motor and cognitive development, psychosocial health, and overweight and obesity, and will continue to affect their health in adulthood and throughout their lives. Whether it is medical experts, sports experts, or education experts, the consensus reached is that children should strengthen their physical activity, preschool children should exercise at least 3 hours a day at different intensities, and exercise at least 1 hour at moderate intensity or above, reduce sedentary time, try to ensure a balance between eating and moving, and prevent and reduce overweight and obesity in children. It is especially recommended that you take your children out for more outdoor activities when the weather is fine. This will not only allow children to be exposed to the outdoor environment and improve their physical immunity, but will also be good for their vision development.

The key point is: to enhance children's immunity, in addition to vaccination, exercise, diet and sleep are the three elements of natural child care 24 hours a day. In other words, to improve children's immunity, we must start from their daily life.

Author｜Expert of the National Health Science Expert Database

You Chuan, chief physician of Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University/Beijing Maternal and Child Health Hospital

Planning｜Tan Jia

Editor: Liu Yang

Source: Healthy China