While education about avoiding burns is important, both Dr Kong and Ms Cheng agree that greater attentiveness to one’s surroundings can help reduce risks.
“With scalds, it is often a typical story where a toddler who can now walk goes and pulls things from the top of the stove and spills hot drinks on themselves,” said Dr Kong.
“Parents, you really want to avoid having hot drinks or hot liquids anywhere near your children,” he said.
Even when a table is higher than a child’s reach, parents should not make the mistake of thinking children would not tug at tablecloths.
“You may want to choose kitchen appliances with child safety locks, and keep them out of the kitchen, perhaps using safety gates or even keep them in play pens.”
Dr Kong has treated children who suffered from electrical burns after sticking their hands in electrical sockets.
“Supervision is very important. You always want to have at least one parent, one caregiver to be supervising toddlers at all times.”
While most burns are preventable, cases still occur despite precautions.
One of the first and most important steps parents should take if their child gets burnt would be to remove the item that is burning the child, Dr Kong said.
“If this is (a piece of) clothing, you’d want to take off that clothing with the hot liquid and immerse or run the burn under cool tap water for at least 10 to 20 minutes.”
Dr Kong explained that this method is most effective within the first hour and can significantly reduce the severity of the burn.
It is also important that parents avoid applying household remedies or "grandma remedies” such as toothpaste or other oils and creams to the burn.
Burns that need to be covered should be done so with materials that would not stick to the skin, such as cling wrap.
“In fact, we do use that in the emergency department as a temporary measure while assessing these burns in order to stop the moisture loss as much as possible from the burn,” Dr Kong said.
Parents are also advised to monitor their child’s pain levels. Painful burns often indicate that the skin is still alive and the nerves remain intact, while deeper burns may be less painful.
On caring for the wounds, Ms Cheng advised that moisturising is important to ensure that the scars heal properly.
After patients get discharged, they come back for annual check-ups so the team can assess if the scar is healing properly.
“However, there are cases where the scar is not well managed, because it's so severe that they have very bad scars. So we would work with them, both medically or surgically.”
One common question Ms Cheng often gets from parents is whether water can touch the scar despite it still looking “raw”.
“We reassure them very confidently that it’s okay to do that and it helps the recovery.
“It encourages them to get back into normalcy and get back to their life and forget all about the things that happened,” she said.
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“With scalds, it is often a typical story where a toddler who can now walk goes and pulls things from the top of the stove and spills hot drinks on themselves,” said Dr Kong.
“Parents, you really want to avoid having hot drinks or hot liquids anywhere near your children,” he said.
Even when a table is higher than a child’s reach, parents should not make the mistake of thinking children would not tug at tablecloths.
“You may want to choose kitchen appliances with child safety locks, and keep them out of the kitchen, perhaps using safety gates or even keep them in play pens.”
Dr Kong has treated children who suffered from electrical burns after sticking their hands in electrical sockets.
“Supervision is very important. You always want to have at least one parent, one caregiver to be supervising toddlers at all times.”
While most burns are preventable, cases still occur despite precautions.
One of the first and most important steps parents should take if their child gets burnt would be to remove the item that is burning the child, Dr Kong said.
“If this is (a piece of) clothing, you’d want to take off that clothing with the hot liquid and immerse or run the burn under cool tap water for at least 10 to 20 minutes.”
Dr Kong explained that this method is most effective within the first hour and can significantly reduce the severity of the burn.
It is also important that parents avoid applying household remedies or "grandma remedies” such as toothpaste or other oils and creams to the burn.
Burns that need to be covered should be done so with materials that would not stick to the skin, such as cling wrap.
“In fact, we do use that in the emergency department as a temporary measure while assessing these burns in order to stop the moisture loss as much as possible from the burn,” Dr Kong said.
Parents are also advised to monitor their child’s pain levels. Painful burns often indicate that the skin is still alive and the nerves remain intact, while deeper burns may be less painful.
On caring for the wounds, Ms Cheng advised that moisturising is important to ensure that the scars heal properly.
After patients get discharged, they come back for annual check-ups so the team can assess if the scar is healing properly.
“However, there are cases where the scar is not well managed, because it's so severe that they have very bad scars. So we would work with them, both medically or surgically.”
One common question Ms Cheng often gets from parents is whether water can touch the scar despite it still looking “raw”.
“We reassure them very confidently that it’s okay to do that and it helps the recovery.
“It encourages them to get back into normalcy and get back to their life and forget all about the things that happened,” she said.
Continue reading...