As a result, hospitals are bracing for heat-related illnesses that invariably strike the elderly during the dog days of summer.

To minimize these risks, health experts have a number of recommendations that will help keep you and your loved ones not only out of the emergency room, but also make getting through the sweltering days more bearable.

The first of these, of course, is to stay in air conditioned spaces whenever possible. No air conditioner? No problem. Take the kids to the library for a couple of hours during the hottest part of the day, or over to the Palmyra Township (Pike County) beach behind the Visitor’s Center at the north end of Lake Wallenpaupack.

It is virtually impossible to know everything you need to learn about your baby whenever he or she is first born. As a parent your education is an ongoing one, as your baby develops and grows, you are also following suit. Your baby is becoming much more aware of the world around him, and growing stronger each and every day. In turn, you are becoming more educated about your baby and your role as a parent. Unfortunately, you will never get quite comfortable with this role, as there is always something new to learn and responsibilities that you must incur. I almost discovered this the hard way a few weeks after my daughter was born, when I was introduced to the danger of water intoxication in babies.

I thought that I was fully prepared to be a father and I had read up as much as I possibly could about raising a baby, and I was pretty confident that I had the necessary education to raise my newborn daughter. While I do admit that I was quite ahead of the curve as compared to most new fathers, I almost made a grave mistake one day when I was mixing my daughter’s formula. She had run out of formula and my wife was at lunch with some of her friends, so I had my daughter for the afternoon. It was the first time I was mixing formula and I didn’t know that you had to carefully follow the instructions on the can. I ended up adding too much water to the formula, which as I was about to find out, could’ve been a grave mistake....

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Place winner, Jennifer Strange, died from water poisoning, leaving three small children behind. The Strange family were awarded $16.5 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Persons working in extreme heat or humidity for long periods must take care to drink and eat in ways that help to maintain electrolyte balance. Even people who are resting quietly may run the risk of water intoxication, if they drink large amounts of water over short periods for rehydration.

The United States Air Force altered its basic recruit training programme after a trainee, Michael J. Schindler died of heat stroke, severely complicated by water intoxication, following a 5.8 mile march, in 1999.

In June 2002, 4-year-old Cassandra Killpack of Springville, Utah died as a result of water poisoning after her parents force-fed her as much as 3.8 liters of water as a punishment. Her mother, Jennette Killpack, was convicted of child abuse homicide.

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