Pandemic Can Severely Impact Children's Mental And Physical Health. Know How To Deal With Them

It is important to figure out signs of stress in young children, which could range from excessive worry or sadness, unhealthy eating.

Representational Picture (AFP)

New Delhi: With the third wave of Covid-19 expected to hit by end of August and vaccination programme still picking up in several states, there are still concerns regarding how it will affect children. A senior paediatrician said if the next wave will have more or increased severity among children are all speculations, according to the news agency PTI.

Praveen Kumar, Director, Department of Paediatrics, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi said there are lot of speculates that future waves may affect children more since most of the adults will be vaccinated in the next few months while vaccine for children is yet to be approved.

The pandemic has brought a lot for changes for kids who are mostly restricted within their homes for more than a year. On how the pandemic has affected children's mental and physical health, Kumar explained pandemic can have a severe effect on children's mental and physical health.

Apart from fear of the disease, illnesses in the family, job loss for parents have increased stress. Children have a way of expressing psychological distress (sadness) which can play out out in a different way. Each child behaves differently, some may become silent while others may express anger and hyperactivity.

How to to deal with children in pandemic?

Caregivers have to behave patiently with children and understand their emotions. It is important to figure out signs of stress in young children, which could range from excessive worry or sadness, unhealthy eating or sleeping habits, and difficulty with attention and concentration.

Everyone in the family needs to support children to cope with stress and also allay their anxiety. While saying that nobody knows how the virus is going to behave and affect children in the future, Praveen Kumar insisted on protecting children from the contagion.

Adults in the house should strictly adhere to Covid-appropriate behaviour, and limit their social engagements to reduce the chances of infection since they may carry and transmit the infection to others. Besides, all the adults should take vaccines, which will also protect the children to a great extent.

He noted that the multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS) is a new syndrome seen in children and adolescents (0-19 years of age). Most patients report it two to six weeks after the peak of Covid-­19 infections in the affected population.

For establishing the diagnosis of MIS-C, advanced investigations are required. All suspected cases should be referred and managed in a tertiary care hospital with HDU/ICU facility. If identified early, all these cases can be treated.