You are having a well deserved cup of hot chai after a long, hard day at work. Either the phone or the doorbell rings and you get up to answer it or maybe you get called away to another part of the house. Unfortunately, absentmindedly, you leave your cup of tea at the edge of the table with the handle jutting out.

Just then, your toddler comes along and sees a nice, attractive, colorful object – reaches out and pulls at the handle! Horror of horrors! he is scalded due to the hot liquid and this follows a typical pattern where he gets scalded on the palm, inner aspect of the forearm and the arm, and the side and front of the chest or some variation of it. Unfortunately, I see this fairly commonly in patients presenting to me.

So what should you do?

1. Firstly, despite your natural panic, do not panic and become hysterical. Remember, you should have read about what to do in such situations before this ever happened to you and is one of the reasons why I am writing this blog post.
2. Immediately, remove any clothing on the child and take him to the bathroom or any tap where, you should pour water at room temperature on the burnt area. This immediately cools down the burnt area and prevents the burn from spreading. If a large area has been burnt then just pour water onto the area and do not remove clothing.
3. Do not put ice on the burnt area – this only increases the pain and can cause further damage to the tissues.
4. Do not rush to apply any ointments or household remedies like turmeric or egg whites or other stuff to the burnt area. There is no need to give immediate protection from germs and will interfere in the evaluation by your doctor.
5. Please apply sterile bandage if you have it on hand, on to the burnt area. Please do not use cotton or any other material where lint can fall on to the wound.
6. Do know which type of burns are significant and if they seem to be significant then take your child to a specialized burns care center (if available) and not to your regular hospital / doctor. (You do have the number and location of such a center written in your emergency contact list don’t you? If not please add it immediately). If burns are not significant, then it is OK to get it evaluated by your pediatrician / pediatric surgeon.

How to quickly assess whether burns are significant:

• Area of burns: If > 10% of body surface area then it is significant burns – remember the area covered by the child’s hand (including fingers) represents 1% of the body surface.
• Burns caused by chemicals, acids, direct flame, with smoke inhalation could be serious and better cared for in a specialized center.
• Burns on the hand, feet, across joints, face or genitals require special care even if they are restricted in area.