What is hand hygiene?
Hand hygiene involves keeping your hands as clean as possible, since your hands are the most common way that germs enter the body. Watch as pediatrician Lisa Thornton, MD, explains the best way to wash your hands and use hand sanitizing products.
Transcript
Try to keep your hands away from your mouth and eyes because that's a great place for germs to get in. But you also want to wash your hands
or de-sanitize your hands and your children's hands frequently. [GENTLE MUSIC]
Hand hygiene is trying to keep your hands as clean as possible because the hands are the most common way that you get germs
into your body. So the first thing to know is try to keep your hands away from your mouth and eyes because that's a great place for germs
to get in. But you also want to wash your hands or de-sanitize your hands and your children's hands frequently.
Now how do you wash your hands? You get soap first and water. You put a little soap on with a little water and lather up.
The lathering is important. Scrub those hands together because the friction is helpful for getting rid of the germs, really loosening them up.
Be sure you get between the fingers. Think about under your fingernails, great place for germs to hide. And be sure you scrub for long enough.
So sing a song to yourself like the "Happy Birthday" song or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Believe me, it seems like it's a long time,
but those germs are really resilient. They stay on your hands. So clean, clean clean. The other thing to remember is that using hand sanitizers
is a great way to clean your hands if you're away from soap and water. Put a generous amount of hand sanitizer on your hands.
Rub them together in between your fingers, under your nails, and then let the hand sanitizer dry naturally on your skin.
That's very important. Do not wipe away the excess. Just let it dry, and you'll keep your hands clean and reduce your risk of getting viruses and other illnesses.
infections
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