Proper Hand Washing to Help Keep Colds Away!
What is the proper ways to wash your hands? Over
the weekend, I had the opportunity to complete a training on health procedures in a childcare
setting. The training covered various sanitation methods and the proper way
to wash hands. I would like to share with you what I discovered through my training and some other helpful things I learned on the Center for Disease
Control and Prevention website.
First, when and how do you wash your hands? There are many
times when you need to wash your hands. These times include: before, during and after meal prep, before and after caring for someone
who is sick, before and after cleaning a cut or wound, after using the restroom,
after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing, after throwing away garbage,
and after playing with animals or handling their food. Doing these few things will not only help keep
you healthy, but your child as well.
How should you wash your hands? First, you need to wet your
hands with warm water then apply soap. Lather your hands by rubbing them
together until you have cleaned the fingers, nails, and front/backs. You should scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds before you rinse the soap off. You should leave the water running and grab a paper towel, dry your
hands off, then, use the paper towel to turn off the water. This will keep your
clean hands from getting re-contaminated.
It is very tempting to use hand sanitizer, however, washing your hands is the best way to kill germs according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Also, hand sanitizer does not kill all germs and it is not effective when your
hands are noticeably dirty or greasy. If
you do use hand sanitizer, you should follow the same steps as if you were
using soap.
If done appropriately, hand washing is a simple thing that everyone can do to keep themselves and their families healthy.
For more information, about proper hand washing, please visit: http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/when-how-handwashing.html
For more information about our program, please visit our website at: http://www.hollytreechildcare.com
