What Environmental Factors Affect Children's Health? How to Prevent Them?

What Environmental Factors Affect children's Health? How to Prevent Them?

From the perspective of chemical and metal pollutants, companies discharge tens of thousands of toxic substances annually, with pesticides being the most common. Physical factors that influence children's health include electromagnetic frequencies, radiation, ultraviolet exposure, radon, and nuclear radiation. Biological factors that affect children's health include mold, fungi, bacteria, and allergens such as pet dander and dust mites. Other factors that impact children's health include noise, humidity, and smoke in their living environment. Studies have shown a close correlation between poor indoor air quality and respiratory diseases in children.

Many parents like to buy toys for their children, leading to an overwhelming number of toys scattered all around the house, creating a messy room. The surfaces of toys are stubbornly resistant to bacteria removal. One study found that 80% of plush toys in surveyed nurseries were contaminated with Streptococcus pneumoniae, and baby cribs had Staphylococcus aureus on their surfaces. These pathogens can survive on toy surfaces for much longer than expected. Pneumococci are the primary pathogens causing ear and respiratory infections in children, while Staphylococcus aureus is common in cases of pharyngitis and skin infections in children.

Recent media reports indicate that certain stationery items used by children, such as automatic pencils, ballpoint pens, gel pens, watercolor pens, plastic book covers, scented erasers, etc., contain plasticizers and benzene substances in correction fluids. Sample surveys found that the rate of excessive toxins was as high as 32.3%. Prolonged exposure may disrupt hormonal balance during adolescence, endangering the liver and kidneys, and even leading to feminization in boys and early puberty in girls. Tests have shown that crayons, oil pastels, and watercolor pigments may contain heavy metals such as lead, barium, antimony, arsenic, selenium, cadmium, and chromium. Excessive intake of heavy metals can cause metal poisoning in children.

Recent research has found that formaldehyde levels in bamboo matting often exceed the national standard limit of 75 milligrams per kilogram, making newly purchased bamboo matting unsuitable for children to sleep on. All types of bamboo matting, whether new or old, need to undergo disinfection and sterilization treatment before summer use to avoid skin problems in children. Long-term disuse of bamboo matting can easily breed mites and bacteria, so it must be thoroughly washed and soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes, followed by exposure to sunlight, to kill the bacteria and mites hidden on the matting, preventing skin allergies or urticaria in children after sleeping on them.

Children in many impoverished families often live in harsh environments, surrounded by heaps of domestic and construction waste, foul-smelling sewage ditches, or pollutants discharged from nearby chemical plants. Their parents often work in hazardous occupations, unintentionally bringing pollutants from the workplace back home.

Research has shown that pregnant women exposed to various pollutants during pregnancy, such as solvents, pesticides, organic pollutants, and chlorine disinfectants in drinking water, may suffer from spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, and congenital birth defects in their babies. Behavioral, cognitive, and neurological disorders in children may be caused by early exposure to neurotoxicants such as lead and methylmercury, leading to subclinical symptoms such as low IQ, lack of concentration, and aggressive behavior. Children's cancer rates have increased in recent years, such as leukemia, osteosarcoma, and brain tumors, which are associated with exposure to chemical or physical factors in the environment. Exposure to pollutants can impair children's immune function, making infants and young children more susceptible to infectious diseases or cancer. Environment-related diseases in children under 5, mainly gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, result in death.

The key to preventing the impact of harmful environmental factors on children's health lies in improving the environment, enhancing public health education, strengthening personal protection, providing safe drinking water to the public, improving environmental sanitation, and restricting pollutant emissions from sources such as coal-burning factories, chemical plants discharging toxins and gases, and coal used for cooking at home, especially automobile exhaust. Healthcare workers should provide children and their families with knowledge about preventing exposure to harmful environmental substances, and they should become the primary advocates for healthcare advertising, so as to prevent pseudo-scientific propaganda from harming children's health. Parents should also learn more about the environmental factors affecting their children's health, grasp methods to prevent children from being exposed to harmful environments, and raise their awareness of environmental protection. For instance, they can teach their children about waste classification at home, instilling in them a concept of green and low-carbon living from an early age. In addition to environmental improvement, interventions such as vaccination, improved midwifery and neonatal care, and appropriate treatment of childhood infectious diseases can reduce the mortality rate of affected children from gastrointestinal and respiratory infections.