Visiting a bathhouse or sauna is strongly associated with a healthy lifestyle, hardening procedures and general improvement of the body, and this is not surprising - contrasting temperatures and invigorating dry steam have the best effect on health. Therefore, it is quite logical that many parents are concerned about the question of when and how best to instill in their child a love of bath procedures. Some people prefer to go to the sauna with their babies almost from the first months of life, others put off visiting the steam room until they are of conscious age... Which one is right? To understand this issue and give parents competent recommendations, you should first evaluate the benefits and harms of a sauna for children, consider all possible contraindications and safety rules that are relevant for such young steamers.
At what age can you go to the steam room?
Features of visiting the bathhouse depending on age:
- If a woman went to the bathhouse during pregnancy, the child can be taken with her to the steam room from 3 months. Before doing this, you need to consult your pediatrician.
- If the mother has not visited the bathhouse, the baby cannot go to the steam room before he reaches 8 months of age.
During bath procedures, the body is exposed to high temperatures. Under their influence, blood vessels dilate, breathing and heart rate increase. It is worth considering that babies’ hearts beat faster than adults’. For this reason, the load on the heart muscle increases. Thermoregulation is fully established only by the age of 3 years.
The benefits of bath procedures
- Strengthening the immune system. Medical statistics show that little sauna lovers are 81% less likely to suffer from respiratory diseases and colds.
- High stress resistance. It has been proven that children who visit the sauna are calmer and more balanced than their peers. Bathing procedures in the family circle help to relax and calm the psyche, help the baby adapt and react more calmly to stress. Such guys practically do not have depressive disorders and neuroses - they “wash away” all the negativity in the steam room.
- Strong vessels. The sauna is an excellent prevention of cardiovascular abnormalities, and it does not matter how old the steamer is - 5 or 50. In adulthood, those who have been accustomed to the sauna since childhood are less likely to experience attacks of arterial hypertension and suffer from vascular pathologies.
- Elastic muscles. Blood flow to the child's muscular system has a positive effect on coordination and motor skills, promotes physical fitness and provides a surge of energy.
- Cleansing the body. In the sauna, the pores open, allowing the body to cleanse itself of toxins, salts and other useless compounds.
- Low weather sensitivity. Babies, accustomed to steaming from infancy, tolerate climate change more easily and practically do not react to weather disasters, since their body is already familiar with temperature and humidity changes.
Indications and contraindications
The bathhouse is allowed to everyone if there are no contraindications. Bath procedures help to quickly cope with the symptoms of colds. Therefore, you can take your child to the steam room if you have a cough or runny nose. Under the influence of hot steam, a kind of inhalation occurs, which helps to cleanse the upper respiratory tract, but cough and runny nose cannot be treated only with the help of bath procedures. Bath procedures have a beneficial effect on the respiratory system:
- By moisturizing the mucous membrane, the number of coughs is reduced.
- When visiting a steam room, the bronchi and blood vessels dilate. Rich steam softens the throat, which is irritated by coughing.
- Liquid mucus begins to be actively produced, a wet cough begins, in which sputum effectively leaves the lungs and bronchi.
The bathhouse will be especially useful for children with certain pathologies:
- Unstable emotional background.
- Chronic diseases of the nasopharynx.
- Inflammation of the upper respiratory tract.
- Respiratory diseases.
We must not forget that children's bodies work differently. It is important to take into account a number of features so as not to harm the baby’s health.
Contraindications to visiting the bathhouse:
- restoration of the body after serious illnesses and operations;
- increased body temperature, blood pressure;
- the presence of skin rashes, open wounds, ulcers;
- pathological changes in the nervous system;
- presence of psychological disorders;
- frequent nosebleeds;
- low or high blood clotting;
- heart disease;
- malignant or benign neoplasms;
- metabolic disorders;
- asthmatic manifestations;
- epilepsy, psychopathy.
You cannot take your child to the bathhouse without his or her desire. Before visiting the steam room, it is recommended to ask him about his general condition and possible discomfort.
Alexander Shestakov, the uncle of the children who froze in the bathhouse, was sentenced to 22 years of strict regime
Photo: Nadezhda PANOVA
Not long ago, the investigation into the notorious incident involving children who froze in a cold bath on January 2, 2013, ended.
Let us remind you that another tragedy involving the death of small children occurred shortly after the New Year celebrations. Two frozen boys were found in the bathhouse of a private house. There is a lot of noise around this story. The investigation said one thing, the people said something completely different. When the public learned about the nightmare, it was stated that the children themselves went to the unheated bathhouse in search of a warm corner, taking their one-and-a-half-year-old sister with them, while Ksyusha remained in the house. At this time, the parents were allegedly walking in the neighbor's house. It was later that the children’s uncle, citizen Shestakov, was detained as a suspect. One of the versions was that the man drank bitter, and his nephews interfered with him. So he locked them in the bathhouse. As it turned out later, this was actually the case, only to the bathhouse he took not little Zhenya, but Ksyusha, who managed to survive, but she will remain disabled for the rest of her life, since her frostbitten legs were amputated anyway. Alexander partially admitted his guilt: “I locked them up, I locked them up, but I didn’t want to kill them,” he justified himself in court.
Photo: Nadezhda PANOVA
Today, July 11, Alexander Shestakov was sentenced to 22 years of strict regime. The mitigation of the sentence was influenced by: his actual admission of guilt, the presence of a disease - tuberculosis, and also the fact that Shestakov has a minor child.
During the announcement of the verdict, the judge emphasized that Shestakov partially admitted his guilt.
“I took them to the bathhouse because they prevented my mother and I from celebrating the new year,” the judge read out the testimony of Alexandra Shestakov.
The same bath...
Photo: Nadezhda PANOVA
At the sentencing, the judge of the Trans-Baikal Regional Court reported other details of the brutal attitude towards her nephews: “First, Shestakov transferred little Ivan to a cold bathhouse, which was last heated in mid-December, then Kostya and Ksenia, who fortunately remained alive.”
Currently, she and her younger sister Zhenya live in St. Petersburg in the Bogachev family.
EXPERTISE
According to the results of a medical and social examination, both boys died from hypothermia, there were no bodily injuries, and no alcohol was found in the blood. The children were dressed in light clothing and without shoes. The convict locked them in the bathhouse and left to continue the “feast” and only remembered about them an hour later. Imagine, if it’s January cold outside, how many degrees of heat could it be in an unheated room?
Photo: Nadezhda PANOVA
“About an hour later I came to check on the children, they walked around the bathhouse and said it was cold, then I didn’t lock them up, but left them alone again.” The next time, as the judge announced, Shestakov came to the children only 60 minutes later: “The nephews were lying on the floor. I thought they were sleeping. He brought them sweaters and covered them up. Thinking that they would get enough sleep and come home on their own, but that didn’t happen...”
The dead children were found on the floor of the bathhouse by their father, who heard Ksyusha crying.
At the end of the court hearing, Tatyana Yakimova, prosecutor of the prosecutor’s office of the Trans-Baikal Territory, answered questions from journalists:
“During the investigation, Shestakov said that he and his mother were alone in the house. At the same time, he stated that the mother could not do this to the children, and he himself was heavily intoxicated and did not remember half of it. But at the time of checking the evidence at the crime scene, Shestakov clearly and clearly explained his actions and showed them on mannequins.
During the court hearings, Shestakov behaved calmly. Doctors identified Shestakov as having an alcohol addiction. He began drinking alcohol at the age of 15, and from the age of 17 he began to go on binge drinking. I would like to say that the relatives were not present at the sentencing, and the children’s mother, Tatyana Pavlova, never appeared at the court hearings at all, and Alexander Shestakov himself cried at the last court hearing. In principle, we consider the court's decision to be justified.
Photo: Nadezhda PANOVA
Let us remind you that the sentence against the parents of the dead boys Tatyana Pavlova and Evgeny Shestakov was submitted for execution to the correctional institute for the Ingodinsky district of the regional Federal Penitentiary Service. By decision of the magistrate's court, the parents were sentenced to one year and four months of correctional labor each, with ten percent of their earnings withheld to the state.
Preparing for a visit to the steam room
Before you go to the steam room, you need to properly prepare. To do this, you need to perform several steps:
- The baby needs to be taught to douse himself with cool water every day and carry out hardening procedures. You can also give him a warming massage.
- You should prepare a cap, special cosmetics for skin and hair care, a towel, a sheet, and slippers. It is important that the shoes are non-slip and that the cap covers dry hair.
- To restore water balance during bath procedures, it is recommended to prepare berry juice or herbal tea. It is forbidden to give your baby sweet soda.
Psychological preparation is also important. It is necessary to tell your child in detail how bath procedures are carried out. After the story, you need to ask him what interested him and alarmed him. It is important to interest the baby in bath procedures, to dispel all his fears and controversial issues. Before heating the stove, you need to take the child on an introductory walk around the bathhouse premises. It is forbidden to hover your baby at high temperatures.
This can lead to the formation of psychological barriers that will discourage the baby from visiting the bathhouse in the future.
How to prepare a child for the first visit to the sauna?
In order for a novice steamer to get acquainted with a new microclimate as smoothly and painlessly as possible, special attention should be paid to preparatory measures that will help adapt the child’s body:
- Consult your child's doctor. The main rule when going to the sauna is the baby’s absolute health and the absence of contraindications. Therefore, it would be a good idea to first visit a pediatrician and, if necessary, undergo some tests to make sure that the baby can cope with temperature and humidity changes.
- About a month or two before the planned visit to the sauna, you should show your child what a contrast shower is. At first, the temperature difference between warm and cool water should be minimal - an average of 3-5 degrees. However, with each new session this difference should be increased slightly - this way the vessels will gradually get used to the changes and will react more calmly to the sauna microclimate.
- Be sure to tell your child what a sauna is and why it is needed. Try to present the information in an interesting and exciting way, so that he perceives the first trip to the steam room as a holiday. If the baby sees the interest and sincere joy of the parents, he will definitely like the new type of recreation.
- Choose the right sauna. It is not advisable to take your child to a Russian bathhouse or Turkish hammam for the first time - although the temperature there is lower, the humid air can be difficult for a child to tolerate, especially if he is not used to it. The ideal option is a Finnish sauna, where the humidity does not exceed 15% - it will be easier to breathe in such an atmosphere. In addition, be sure to warn the administrator that you will have a child with you, so you should not raise the temperature in the booth too critically. The optimal temperature for the first vaping should not exceed 70-90 degrees.
- Don't plan anything for your first vape day. If you are an avid sauna lover and can sit in it for several hours at a time, you will have to postpone your own rest - it will be difficult for a child to sit for the same amount of time in the steam room for the first time. Ideally, you can organize 2-3 five-minute visits with breaks of at least 15 minutes. With each subsequent visit, the duration of steaming can be increased, but for the first time this is unacceptable.
Bathing city children
Bathing an infant was a rather labor-intensive procedure: you had to heat the kettle, prepare water at the right temperature, bathe and dry the baby, and pour the water out of the bath. The bathtub or basin was placed in the room on a chair or stool, and after bathing it was carried out together, holding the handles. All this required the participation of two or even three adults in the ceremony of bathing the child.
Mark Zakharovich Chagall (1887-1985) Bathing a child. 1916 Pskov Museum-Reserve
A vivid description of bathing is given by Agnia Barto in the poem of the same name:
Bathing
Bathing! Bathing! The house is full of people! A whole group of people are heating water in the kitchen.
And mom in a white skirt, like a captain from the wheelhouse, gives the command cheerfully: - Hurry up, bring the buckets, soap dishes and sponges!
My brother is surprised by all this fuss: Why does he need to swim? He's already doing well!
In the bath, the smart guy just narrows his eyes: Lying here, perhaps, is better than in a stroller!
Agniya Barto
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Titov (1913-1996) In the family. 1947
Vladimir Vasiliev captured the arrival of guests at the wrong moment: the parents were just getting ready to bathe their newborn. Everyone is somewhat confused.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Vasiliev (1895-1967) A son was born. 1937 Perm Art Gallery
As a rule, babies love bathing and calm down in warm water, but there are exceptions. Here the baby arches and screams in his father's arms while his mother prepares water. The water temperature was usually checked (and still is checked) with the elbow.
Valentina Alekseevna Agababaeva-Shebasheva (born 1927) At home. 1955
Elsa Davidovna Khokhlovkina (born 1934) Bathing. 2006
In the 1970s and 80s, children were no longer bathed in galvanized bathtubs, but in plastic bathtubs, or in a large shared bathtub.
Evgeny Alexandrovich Zubov. Son. 1984
Svetlana Alekseevna Smirnova (born 1969) In the morning. 2008
Maxim Nikolaevich Rudnev (born 1976) Swimming in the hostel. 2007
Shadrunova Zoya Gennadievna (Russia, 1950) “Bathing” 1978
Illustration for a children's book, author unknown
Swimming in the summer in the village and in the country
In summer you could swim outside in water heated by the sun. In this painting by Vladimir Gusev, a baby splashes in a galvanized steel bathtub while his mother hangs out the washed clothes.
Vladimir Sergeevich Gusev (born 1957) Bathing
Kopytseva Maya Kuzminichna (1924-2005) Bathing. 1960s
Tatyana Anatolyevna Kalyn (Mikhneva) (born 1969) Happiness in its purest form
Tatyana Anatolyevna Kalyn (Mikhneva) (born 1969) Happiness in its purest form II.
Andrey Gavrilovich Lysenko (1916-2000) “Bathing a child”
Arkady Aleksandrovich Plastov (Russia, 1893-1972) “Hot afternoon” 1960s
Maria Vladimirovna Savchenkova (Russia, 1917) “Afternoon in a manger”
How to properly steam children in a bathhouse and sauna
The steam should be given slowly, carefully observing how the child feels. If pallor appears, he should be immediately taken out of the steam room and given water. But it’s better to never let it come to this.
Under no circumstances should you be overzealous with brooms; you don’t need to whip the baby, just lightly stroke the baby’s body with a steamed broom. Of course, you need a hat, rubber slippers and a sheet.
Before taking your child to the bathhouse, you should definitely consult a doctor - only healthy children can be taken there.
Forbidden
visiting a bathhouse for a child with infectious diseases, problems with the digestive system, headaches, heart problems, fever.
