A Santa Clarita pediatrician is advising parents to be extremely cautious about their child’s activities going into the new school year due to the excessive heat Santa Clarita has seen this summer.

“This excessive heat is expected to go through, with very little break, the end of October, beginning of November,” said Dr. Rochelle Feldman of Prima Pediatrics. “Heat and kids is kind of a lethal combination.”

While Feldman noted that the Santa Clarita Valley has one of the best school systems in the nation, she stressed that the extensive administration required to make changes to standard rules during the current excessive heat could lead to students being in danger of heat stroke.

Related: Santa Clarita Pediatrician Names Top Two Summer Safety Dangers For Kids

“Our schools are going to be placed in a situation where they have to make changes right now,” Feldman said. “It is my opinion … that no outside sports should be permitted until the heat chills down to less than 90 degrees. Now I don’t believe that’s the case for most of our schools.”

With Santa Clarita temperatures consistently above 90 degrees — often exceeding triple digits — and a jump in humidity from the average 10-15 percent to the current 40-50 percent, any type of outdoor activities or exposure to buses without air conditioning put children at risk of heat stroke, according to Feldman.

“That increase in humidity makes the increase in heat 10 degrees hotter, and it increases the risk of heat stroke that much more,” she explained. “Because when it’s more humid, you can’t sweat it off… The mechanisms by which we have to cool our bodies, keep in mind children have a much narrower range because they don’t sweat as much as adults do. We are now talking about a very dangerous situation.”

Feldman acknowledged that school sports teams will more than likely continue to practice outside despite the excessive heat and rising humidity, adding, “We are going to see more and more cases of heat stroke.”

“I know that the coaches and the teachers do try very hard to keep those kids hydrated,” Feldman continued. “The amount of water they’re going to need has got to be tripled what you normally expect. Every 10 to 15 minutes, these kids need to be watered, and I don’t mean (just) internally, I mean externally as well. Because if you water somebody down, like when you go to the beach, you can still get heat stroke, but it’s not as easy if you’re going in and out of the water.”

For both coaches/teachers and parents, Feldman advised using a weather app on their phones to monitor the heat, and if temperatures exceed 90-95 degrees and humidity is greater than 30 percent, students should be brought inside or not allowed on any buses without air conditioning.

“Use common sense — I don’t care what the rules are,” Feldman said. “If it’s too hot, it’s too hot. You ignore the rules and save the lives, and that’s the important thing.”

Ed. Note: This article is a KHTS Community Spotlight based on a recent radio interview with Prima Pediatrics.

Prima Pediatrics

18520 Via Princessa

Canyon Country, CA 91387

661-424-9000

Prima Pediatrics – Canyon Country

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X0m-MTXm6w

Santa Clarita Pediatrician, Pediatrician in Santa Clarita, Dr. Rochelle Feldman, Prima Pediatrics