When we talk about children, the expression "drowning in a glass of water" does not sound so absurd. You will be surprised at how dangerous things can be for children, which we consider absolutely safe. What can be a real danger to the life and health of children - this and talk.
Open sun
A deadly dose of ultraviolet for a child is five hours under the scorching sun. A serene July day, spent under the Egyptian sun, may be the last in a child's life. It's enough to stay 2 to 4 hours under the sun to get a heat stroke. Its first manifestation is weakness, dizziness, headache, noise in the ears. Then the body temperature rises to about 40 ยบ C, the pulse and breathing becomes rapid, the child begins to rave. Then his blood pressure will fall and he will faint. It is especially difficult to distinguish the symptoms of heat stroke in young children who can not say what bothers them. Yes, and the lethal dose of the sun for such children can be several times less than for more adults. Keep track of your child's state of being in the open sun. In the world of thermal shock, many more children die than you think.
Nicotine
It's not even about the dangers of smoking for a child. Many of them simply "breathe in" nicotine to die. The lethal dose for an adult is 85 cigarettes at a time. And the child will be enough and ten. Nicotine is the most terrible poison. Even rats resistant to this poison usually die from nicotine at a dose of 50 mg per kilogram of live weight. According to recent studies, for the human body, these data are much lower and range from 0.5 to 1 mg per kilogram of weight. The problem is that the so-called "passive smoking" is a real danger to the life and health of the child, it is even more dangerous than active smoking. After exhaling cigarette smoke, a smoker throws a toxic substance into the air - nicotine gas. It easily penetrates into the lungs, immediately acting directly on the brain. Its small dose is enough to make a child lose consciousness or have an attack of suffocation. If you keep the child in a smoky room for a long time - this will cause irreversible processes in his body and can lead to death.
Alcohol
The lethal dose for an adult is 3 bottles of vodka. With children, the situation is much easier for a small child to have a glass of beer to get the strongest alcohol poisoning and even die. Alcohol acts on the child even before his birth, if the mother, being pregnant, abused alcohol. Already at an early stage of development, alcohol affects the functioning of all systems and organs of the child, causing serious malformations and mutations. The organism of a young child is not adapted to eliminate toxins (the strongest of which is alcohol), his liver is not yet able to cleanse the blood quickly and without consequences. Even a small dose of alcohol, if not killed, then fairly spoil the further health of the child. And maybe for the rest of my life.
Multivitamins
You will be surprised, but vitamins in general represent a real danger to the life and health of children. A lethal dose for a child is 500 tablets per day. Of course, very few people keep these preparations at home in such quantities, however, for a severe poisoning, a more modest dose is sufficient. Yes, vitamins can be life-threatening. Any manifestation of hypervitaminosis is much more dangerous than the most protracted avitaminosis. The latter can be cured by taking a course of vitamin therapy, but with the second manifestation it is quite impossible to cope. Because of the excess of vitamins, the baby starts to refuse organs one by one: first the liver, then the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines. The first symptoms of an overdose of vitamins are: headache, dizziness, shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, loss of consciousness and even seizures.
An overdose of vitamin B1 leads to dysfunction of the liver and kidneys, vitamin B12 - to a dangerous increase in heart rate, faster blood clotting, vitamin D - to weakness, thirst, vomiting, fever, increased blood pressure, difficulty breathing, slow heartbeat. Excess of vitamin E in children's bodies can cause metabolic disorders, thrombophlebitis, necrotic colitis (renal failure, retinal hemorrhages, hemorrhagic stroke).
But vitamins are still more useful than harmful. If you take them reasonably, in the doses indicated in the instructions, then vitamins will not bring any danger to the life and health of children.
Salt
You probably did not know this, but the lethal dose of salt for a child is 100 grams per meal.
Experiments were performed in rats that showed that 3 grams of salt per kilogram of live weight could kill animals. But not all so unambiguously. The main question is how these 100 grams will be consumed. If at once and without any liquid - a child who does this is unlikely to survive. Because the excess salt sharply raises blood pressure, which in itself is already very dangerous for the life and health of children! But that's not all - excessive intake of salt is usually accompanied by severe swelling (1 g of salt leads to the loss of 100 ml of fluid in the body). But the most dangerous are edema of the brain and lungs, as a result of which death will definitely come.
Coffee
A lethal dose for children is 50 cups of strong espresso. Are you surprised? This is a scientifically proven fact: a lethal dose of 92 mg per 1 kg of live weight. Depending on the weight and individual sensitivity to caffeine on a human figure that ranges from 150 to 200 mg. So the average lethal dose for an adult will be 12 grams of caffeine, and for a child - several times less. Strong and true espresso is native to Italy, but in our latitudes is not so common. Our body is not adapted to consuming large doses of caffeine. In fact, this substance is like adrenaline, and it is very dangerous for children. Yes, and for adults is a real threat. After all, 150 cups of coffee (this is only 4.5 liters) is enough to kill a person.
Water
This is quite incredible, but the lethal dose of water for an adult is 8-10 liters per day. Nutritionists say that when consuming 1000 calories, 1 liter of water should be drunk. The average adult consumes 2000-2500 calories a day during meals, so at the rate he needs to drink from 1.5 to 2 liters of water per day. An overdose of water 3-4 times can lead to so-called poisoning with water or intoxication, which is caused by a violation of water-salt metabolism in the body.
In the case of children, everything is more serious. Kidneys can not drive excessive amounts of fluid through themselves, the concentration of salt decreases sharply, and water begins to fill the intracellular space. As a result, all this leads to swelling of the brain and lungs, and soon to death. And the worst thing is that in case of poisoning with water, practically nothing can be done. Making the body quickly get rid of excess water is impossible.
Electricity
This point, perhaps, no one doubts. The lethal dose for an adult is more than 0.1 ampere. The child suffices much less tension. For comparison: during the death penalty in electric chairs, which retains its relevance in at least six US states, the current is used up to 6 amps! The effect of the current lasts 20 seconds, with the death occurring instantaneously. But household electricity is also extremely dangerous. In theory, if you take a long nail with wet hands and push it into the socket, where the voltage is 220 volts, you will get an electricity discharge from 0.1 to 0.2 amperes. After 1-3 seconds your breath will be paralyzed, your heart will stop, death will come. Needless to say, in the case of children this theory may well go into practice. Do not trust even older children (7-9 years old) to use electrical appliances on their own. They may not be fully operational, and a short circuit can occur at any time.
Mosquito bites
The lethal dose for an adult is 500 000 bites, for children - 100 000. And this is only if there is no allergy to mosquito venom. The female mosquito, which weighs an average of 2.6 mg, can suck up blood as much as it weighs itself, i.e. about 5 mg or 0.005 ml. Blood is about 7% of the total mass of the human body. In the body of an average adult approximately 5.5 liters of blood. You can lose up to 15% of all blood without compromising your health, but the associated loss of 2 to 2.5 liters can be considered as fatal. So if, wandering through the forest, you are bitten by half a million mosquitoes - your business is completely bad. A real danger to the life and health of children is represented by one hundred thousand bites.