What Every First Aid Kit Should Include
You never know when an emergency might arise, and you also never know how long it will take for help to arrive if one does. For that reason you should have a first aid kit on hand, locked up in a high place that is out of reach of children. By keeping one in your home and one in your car, you can make sure that you are prepared in the event that you need to act quickly. Having a first aid kit can help you save someone’s life, or possibly stabilise a very severe injury. Here are just a few of the things you will want to make sure you have in your kit.
First Aid Kit Essentials
To begin with, you need to ensure that you have enough gauze and bandages to take care of minor and major injuries. You should have a variety of plasters in different shapes and sizes, a variety of gauze dressings, conforming rolled bandages, triangular bandages, and at least two eye dressings. All of these should be wrapped so that they are sterile when you need to use them.
Next, you will need some basic tools that will help you to apply items from your first aid kit. These include safety pins, a few pairs of sterile gloves, alcohol-free cleansing wipes or normal saline pods, tweezers, sticky tape, and scissors. There are conveniently small versions of all of these things available for medical purposes in your local pharmacy. You should also invest in a thermometer so that you can quickly take a temperature. If possible, digital is a better, and usually more accurate choice.
You will also need to keep medications on hand to treat minor injuries, and help alleviate pain symptoms while awaiting further medical care. In terms of creams, you will want some type of hydrocortisone to apply to rashes that may appear. You will also want a spray or cream that can be used to relieve the itchiness and pain that accompanies stings and bites from insects. Additionally, you should have some type of antiseptic cream and antibacterial wipes to clean wounds with.
Of course, you also want to have traditional over the counter medications in your first aid kit as well. These include painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, or aspirin. If you have children in your home or are frequently around children, then you should also put the infant and children’s versions of these medications in your kit. Additionally, you should place antihistamine tablets in your kit to treat allergic reactions. These medications are ideal for your own children but recommended if you child mind.
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