10262020 Safeguard

Lyssa Talks with Dr. Jennifer Caudle about the best way to encourage our kids to wash their hands

More rain showers there by the end of the week ... c1 3 interviewer: proctor and gamble and instructure are announcing their partnership providing schools nationwide with educational and product resources to help teach elementary students proper hand-washing habits in line with the cdc guidelines.

So joining us by phone to tell us all about this effort and to give hand-washing tips is board certified family medicine physician, dr. jennifer caudle.

Welcome to the show dr. jen.

Dr. jennifer ca...: thanks so much for having me.

Interviewer: now, let's get right to it.

Why is it important that people wash their hands?

We see it everywhere.

We hear it on the news.

We see it on tv.

We see it on signs everywhere.

Why is it so important?

Dr. jennifer ca...: well, hand-washing is really one of our best defenses against viruses, bacteria, germs, you name it and literally, we are coming into the cold and flu season.

We know that hand-washing is so important for that, but also the fact that we're literally in the middle of a covid pandemic and hand- washing, again, it's one of our best defenses.

It's one of the things that we need to make a priority, make sure we are doing every single day, multiple times a day, as a matter of fact.

Interviewer: absolutely.

It's so important.

Now, how will the safeguard soap brand and canvas partnership help elementary students nationwide?

Dr. jennifer ca...: yeah, so this is an amazing partnership, something i'm really excited to be working with safeguard on.

First of all, i should say that safeguard is a soap that has been endorsed by the skin health alliance, which means that it's not only safe and effective, it also means it's gentle on the skin, which i really love.

But safeguard is partnering with canvas to help provide educational materials to students first and second graders through lesson plans to teachers, which is kind of awesome, i think.

In addition to that, they're also donating products to nonprofits as well.

So this initiative really is about educating young people about the importance of hand-washing.

But of course, we know hand-washing is important for everyone.

This couldn't be more stressed and more important right now.

Interviewer: absolutely.

And parents need all the help they can in helping to teach their kids and remind their kids all the time to wash their hands as well as ourselves too.

Dr. jennifer ca...: right.

Interviewer: what is the proper way for kids to wash their hands at school and how often should they be doing it?

Dr. jennifer ca...: yeah, those are great questions.

So first of all, we'll start with the second question first, which is how often should kids... i'll throw adults in there too.

How often should we all be washing our hands?

I say regarding that, we should be washing our hands as often as we need to.

However, specific times, which is very important, it would be things like after using the restroom, before and after eating, when our hands become soiled, if we cough or sneeze or things of that nature, we blow our nose.

Those are just some examples of times when we should be washing our hands.

But i always say, look, if you're not sure, err on the side of caution.

It's always better to be safe than sorry, as we say, but in terms of how to wash our hands, and this is something that i really want everyone to take note of, we want to make sure that we're lathering up with soap and water and scrubbing our hands, getting underneath the nails and everything like that for at least 20 seconds.

Sometimes it's hard to know how long 20 seconds is, so singing the happy birthday song back to back twice, to give you an idea of that.

But making sure that we're lathering up really, really good and then rinsing off, that is the proper way to wash our hands and of course, safeguard soap helps us do that effectively.

So really important to keep washing your hands.

When in doubt, wash your hands.

Interviewer: when in doubt wash your hands, absolutely.

Now where can people go to find out more information?

Dr. jennifer ca...: absolutely.

So to get more information about the canvas partnership and information about the lesson plans for teachers, for students and even product go to safeguardstudent s.com.

Interviewer: wonderful.

Dr. caudle, thank you so much for joining us today.

We really appreciate it and we appreciate all