You spend over half of your lifetime in your own home, which means that the quality of your living environment can have a significant impact on your family wellness. Your children’s wellbeing is particularly at risk to potential health hazards in your home, such as changes in air quality, lead dangers caused by deteriorating paint and safety hazards, so how can you ensure a safer, healthier home for the entire family?
Firstly, make sure you’re home is dry. If there’s moisture in your home environment, it can influence the quality of the air. For example, mould and mildew, when in excess, can lead to allergy and asthma attacks, and higher moisture levels also give rise to dust mites, which is a common allergy in children. However, you can make sure your home is moisture-proof by repairing leaks, keeping a good level of ventilation, opening a window when bathing (or keeping a fan running) and controlling overall indoor humidity levels.
You also need to keep your home well-maintained to avoid fire safety issues and accidents from poorly maintained flooring or wiring, as well as water damage and mould problems. If you fix these problems when they are small, you’ll avoid larger wellness consequences later on. A stitch in time saves nine. Pest control is another important part of your prevention process, as mice, ants, cockroaches and bed bugs are all easier to control by stopping them from intruding, rather than letting them in and trying to catch them. Don’t let pests get a foothold in your home, but block access points like holes in the walls and floors – especially in the basement.
However, some of the more dangerous threats aren’t as visible as your local pests. Radon is an odourless, invisible gas that can threaten your wellness with cancer, and your whole family can become ill from carbon monoxide exposure before any detectors notice its presence. Plus, you may be aggravating your child’s asthma or allergies without realising, as air fresheners and candles release toxins into the air that aggravate respiratory symptoms. Make sure you get your home tested for radon and carbon monoxide, and eliminate odours at the source by cleaning and taking out the rubbish often.
*Our content is not intended to provide medical advice or diagnosis of individual problems or circumstances, nor should it be implied that we are a substitute for professional medical advice. Users / readers are always advised to consult their Healthcare Professional prior to starting any new remedy, therapy or treatment. Your Wellness Group accepts no liability in the event you, a user of n-gage and a reader of this article, suffers a loss as a result of reliance upon or inappropriate application of the information.