i live with my boyfriend and his son and the little man has been sick consistently since he started attending day care in january. this week i wondered, as i often do, about the amount of snot coming out of his nose. it seems to be an endless flow of sticky boogers. where does this come from? i did some research about mucous, in the nose in particular, and below is what i discovered.
this is how i will explain it to young people:
snot is slimy, gooey stuff that is technically known as mucous. mucous membranes
line the inside of our noses and sinuses and secrete snot to protect our bodies from invaders like germs, pollen and dust. snot traps the tiny particles of junk we breathe in so they don't make their way into our lungs and make us sick. if germs do sneak in, and we get sick, we'll probably get a runny nose because our bodies make extra snot to wash away the germs. boogers, on the other hand, are those hard, crusty globs that stick in our noses when dirty snot dries out.
so why are little kids always snotty-nosed? one possible reason why some children produce so much snot is because they haven't learned how to blow their noses yet. another reason is that young children get sick easier because they can't fight off infection as well. probably, it is some combination of the two.
here's to less snot!
No comments:
Post a Comment