First of all, this blog brings you Happy Independence Day Greetings from the doctors and staff at Orlando Cosmetic Surgery and the Med Spa. Here in Orlando, we think American Freedom deserves to be celebrated for more than just one day.
So we hope some of your holiday is being spent recognizing inspiring good old fashioned patriotism. We cherish the rights we enjoy in the United States and we respect those who protect them.
Irma Bombeck touched the holiday with her light-hearted humor, saying, “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy and the flies die from happiness.”
As we approach the end of this great holiday, we agree with her , with a wink and a smile, as she says “You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. “ ~Erma Bombeck
Beware the Excess of July 4 Sun Exposure, now and all Summer Long!
It’s good to share a smile with Bombeck’s homey American humor, but it does seem that this holiday, and much of summer celebrates excess: excess food, excess drink, and most concerning to us, excess sun exposure.
Often, the people most hurt by sun exposure are the young and tender ones, our children. Now, there is“strong evidence that early sun exposure can increase children’s risk of later skin cancer…” At this point we refer you to last week’s article, Melanoma Madness for information about this deadly form of skin cancer.
What is more surprising is that the studies prove it’s risky for darker-skinned children whose skin damage doesn’t show up. Simply because they do not “look” sun-burned, some parents are unaware the damage exists.
Orlando Cosmetic Surgery clinic complements Boston and Miami Beach for their almost astonishing program of providing free sunscreen in public places.
In Miami Beach, 50 dispensers on city beaches and in parks pump out an SPF 30 lotion infused with sea kelp.” The sunscreen company, “Destination Brands,” is providing the sunscreen. They partnered with Mount Sinai Medical Center, who provided the dispensers. The program itself is being run by the city.
Likewise, the Boston program is being run by Melanoma Foundation of New England. The New York Times recently reported that New York City is now contemplating such a program. Oddly, the greatest concern expressed among officials is the question of whether the public will use it, even if it is free.
Parents are offered a dazzling array of consumer products to protect their children from the sun. Plus, the summer has brought us not only dangers from the sun, but new problems with mosquitoes and new fears about tics. This adds up to the fact that parents face using both sunscreen and bug repellent. This provokes intense concern: Just how many chemicals can our children take?
Sun and Insects Threaten Children in 2016
In our next blog, we will address this and much more concerning protecting our children’s skin. For now, we want you well aware that babies have very permeable skin. What you put on your baby’s skin will soak in and chemicals become a challenge to immature systems. So, our experts at Orlando Cosmetic Surgery want parents to provide better and safer protection for babies and toddlers. This means:
1. Avoid time in the direct sun.
2. Use protective clothes that cover the skin.
3. Provide shade to deflect the rays.
4. Invest in some netting or screen for protection from insects.
5. Babies, toddlers and children need to wear hats to shield delicate facial skin.
In fact, did you know that many doctors believe babies under 6 months old should not be exposed to direct sunlight for any length of time?
See more next week, in Part II of our coverage of Children’s skin and the summer environment.
Thank you for visiting the blog at Orlando Cosmetic Surgery. Once again, we think our Independence and Freedom should be cherished all year long, not just one week-end.
We leave you with a fine Independence Day quote by Dwight D. Eisenhour: “Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”
We can only add “Happy Birthday To the Red, White and Blue!”
