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  • Hi, your child has just come in and they're crying because they've got a cut or they fell

  • off their bike and scraped their knee. What do you do next? The first thing to do would

  • be to calm your child down. You might want to give them a glass of water or something

  • to help them relax a little bit and feel better. The next thing of course is to make sure that

  • the cut isn't bleeding too much, and you want to make sure it's clean. So, the first thing

  • you could do then is to place the cut under stream of running water if at all possible.

  • If it's inconvenient or unable to do that, you can take a clean cloth and just get it

  • wet and gently wipe off the cut. You want to make sure it's clean and there isn't any

  • debris left in there. You then want to make sure that you're able to stop any bleeding

  • if it's still bleeding, and you do that by applying pressure. You just put that rag back

  • on there and hold it tight until the bleeding goes away. After that you're ready to bandage

  • the cut. You could pick a band-aid that is about the right size for the cut. If it's

  • little, you can use a little one. If it's bigger, you might need something more. That

  • begs the question of when do you need to go to the doctor for a cut. If the cut is deep,

  • if it's more than, say, an eighth of an inch deep, if it's more than an inch long, if it

  • looks like it needs stitches, certainly you need to go to the doctor. If it's a very dirty

  • cut and you think that, um, they've uh, well your child has probably had a recent tetanus

  • shot, but if there's some doubt about that, that would be another reason to go to the

  • doctor. If they've taken a gouge out of their skin, that's more than, say, the size of a

  • dime, you might want to see a doctor to make sure it's clean and the edges are going to

  • heal good. But then what you want to do to treat it is just to cover it with a bandage,

  • keep it clean and dry. You want to change the bandage once a day. You can put a little

  • antibiotic cream as long as your child isn't allergic. And particularly on a scrape, the

  • cream is helpful. And if the child gets the bandage wet, you want to change it so that

  • it doesn't grow bacteria, the bacteria underneath cannot grow. Again, my name is Beverly Bitterman,

  • ARNP, Health and Wellness Consultant, and I hope that your child's cut heals sooner

  • rather than later.

Hi, your child has just come in and they're crying because they've got a cut or they fell

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