What should we do when our child gets a wound or burn with a heat source? Knowing how to serve you and provide a first aid is essential to avoid infection. Dr. Juan Jesús Hernández, head of the Health Plan of the Department of Health and Relief, Red Cross, explains everything you need to know to deal with wounds and burns in children.
Heal wounds and bleeding in children

How can we heal a deep wound at home for a child or to stop bleeding until medical help arrives?

Its procedures we have in Red Cross is to protect, alert, assist (PAS). This means that with a deep wound or a bleeding importantly, the first thing is to make sure the place where we are, for example, if the child has been cut with a glass that is broken, you must first remove the crystals. Then call the emergency services if gravity does, and then we can take care of our son.
Keep in mind that bleeding may endanger the life of the person, and if we can not control them, you always have to make an emergency call or refer to hospital. What are these measures? First, direct pressure on the source of bleeding, taking into account that the first or the first gauze dressing that we place stuck to the skin never going to take, because it is possible you are creating a clot and remove that first bandage could increase the intensity still bleeding. Therefore, if we were soaked with blood, add another dressing that we had the initial post.

In the extremities, should increase the effectiveness of our pressure by a higher elevation of the heart, we will also help control bleeding. The pressure can be done at the point of pressure control in both the arm and in the groin and the following members. If the elevation have not gotten the bleeding is controlled, if blood is coming out, if the child begins to be tachycardic, pale or sweaty, we must remove to a hospital. Similarly, a wound that is out of the ordinary, you should always be assessed by a medical team, and cleaned and cured by the nursing staff. With all that common sense tells us that out of the ordinary, always the better idea is to move the child to a health center.

What does it look when a wound is infected?
The infected wounds are unsightly, the swollen edges of the wound environment may be red. Very often this occurs in wounds that have broken edges, with inbound, outbound and crannies, where it is easier for infection to appear, there may even be swelling across the skin around for this, and if has evolved in those days, may even appear that destruction of tissue, the accumulation of dead white blood cells which is the pus, which in some cases, we can see coming out of the edges or the bed of the wound.

To prevent infection , the most important thing is to take good care and good cleaning of the wound not only in the time that has occurred, but by regular cleaning of the wound. If infection has occurred and is located possibly with a good wash, a good drag with gauze, cotton, because avoiding the loose hair, and a good antiseptic for the different might be in the market may be sufficient to control infection . However, when a child has symptoms, fever, malaise, feeling of nausea or vomiting, the infection requires a health care and consult with the team will need regular doctor.

How do we know if a wound needs stitches and have to take the child to hospital?
The decision to suture a wound must always come from the health team. At home, we think that a wound needs stitches when a major separation of wound edges, especially and most often, when incised wounds, which can be made with a material like a knife cutting. The wounds that bleed may also need stitches. Keep in mind that a wound after 4 to 6 hours if it occurred in no case can be sutured. Therefore, if we suspect that the child’s wound required stitches, it is best to come quickly to a hospital.