Is it worth soaking your feet in a basin, is it harmful to run on the floor without slippers, and will garlic beads protect against infections? Pediatrician, allergist-immunologist and host of the Friday! Alexey Bessmertny analyzes folk methods of disease prevention from the point of view of modern medicine.
1. Soaring your feet in hot water is not!
Wait a minute, pour boiling water into a basin and pour half a pack of mustard powder into it. Soaring your legs at the first sign of SARS is an absolutely meaningless procedure from a medical point of view. Steamed heels will not help in any way to drive away a virus or a bacterium if the pathogen has already entered the body. And if you haven’t hit it yet, then there’s basically nothing to fight with.
We call this type of procedure distractions. By the way, putting jars on your back, sculpting mustard plasters and putting on woolen socks with the same mustard are also distracting procedures. They will not protect or cure a child from infections in any way, their sacred meaning is to alleviate a person’s condition by distracting him with other strong sensations. Do you need it specifically for your baby, decide for yourself.
An interesting fact is that in the textbook on pediatric dermatology by Peter Heger, one of the sections is devoted to violence against children, traces of which can be noticed by a pediatrician. So, it is written there that young pediatricians should not be frightened if they see specific marks on their backs on some residents of the post-Soviet space. Children were not tortured, it was just kind parents who put jars or mustard plasters on the child.
2. Allow only melted ice cream — no!
What could be worse than sticky sweet gruel instead of strong creamy ice cream? Because otherwise you will catch a sore throat and will certainly get a sore throat. And in general — what a normal parent gives ice cream to children in winter.
In fact, the opposite is true — cold is safe for a healthy throat and good for a sick one: it will help relieve inflammation and reduce pain. And ice cream is just delicious, why not please the child.
Alexey Bessmertny 
Педиатр, аллерголог-иммунолог в клининках DocDeti/DocMed 
Parents, remember: it is not the cold that provokes respiratory diseases, but the action of bacteria and viruses. For example, streptococci can cause a sore throat, but definitely not a creamy ice cream.
3. Keep the windows closed so as not to catch a cold — no!
«Close the window, you'll catch a cold!» — this phrase sounds in every second family with kids. And our poor children sit in the stale warm air, and still get ARVI. Because the classic «cold» develops due to pathogenic bacteria or viruses entering the body, and not at all because someone opened the window.
Of course, this does not mean that you need to freeze the room , and at the same time supercooling the child is a good measure in everything. Moreover, severe hypothermia can reduce local immunity.
But definitely the apartment should be aired regularly. Another important point — do not forget about the protection on the windows. All opening sashes must have special locks that will not allow the child to fall out of the window. Because children are curious, and fireworks are often shown in winter windows.
4. Walking around the house only in socks and slippers — no!
Grandmothers go crazy at the sight of children's bare feet slapping on the floor. Because — oh and ah — the child is bound to get sick. But this is not entirely true, or rather, not at all. The child should walk around the house in what he is comfortable in. Comfortable barefoot — please, if he wants to wear woolen socks and slippers — let him walk.
No one gets sick from the conditionally cold floor in the house, it's just the fears of the older generation. If the child feels that he is comfortable and warm, then he is comfortable and warm. When it's cold, put on something more serious.
5. Garlic beads will protect against infections — no!
Garlic is a useful thing, and if a child agrees to eat it, then that's great. But do not think that garlic, hung around the neck, will save the child from infections. If only from vampires, and then hardly.
The same can be said about salt caves and physiotherapy — all these things are needed to calm the parents and earn money for those who organize them. It's just fashion and marketing: studies have shown that the salt cave is not effective for the treatment of respiratory and allergic diseases.