“Infants and children can sunburn easily and need to rely on parents to keep them safe,” says Sophie J. Balk, M.D., a pediatrician at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. “Being outdoors, breathing fresh air and playing and exercising are good for children but it’s important to protect their skin while they’re enjoying the summer weather.”
Here are some top tips for protecting little ones from the summer sun.
- If possible, try to time outdoor activities outside the hours of peak sun, before 10 a.m. or after 4 p.m.
- Wear protective clothing and a hat with a broad brim to help keep cool and protect skin from dangerous UV rays, especially during the peak hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It’s also important to wear sunglasses that block out UV rays.
- To avoid sunburn, apply a generous amount of sunscreen to exposed surfaces – especially the child’s face, nose, ears, feet and hands, and the backs of the knees – and reapply about every two hours, especially after swimming or playing outdoors.
- Choose a sunscreen with broad-spectrum protection that blocks both UVA and UVB radiation with an SPF of 15 or higher. Sunscreen should be used even on cloudy days, because the sun’s rays penetrate through the clouds.
- Keep young infants under 6 months old out of direct sunlight when possible. If there is no way to avoid the sunlight, sunscreen may be applied to small areas of skin uncovered by clothing and hats, but be watchful of the child so that they don’t ingest the sunscreen, for example if it has been applied to hands, which young children tend to put in mouths.
Sophie J. Balk, M.D., is a general pediatrician at The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx NY. Dr. Balk’s academic work focuses on environmental health issues relevant to children. She has lectured regionally and nationally on sun safety, smoking cessation and is the lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) technical report and policy statement on ultraviolet radiation.
