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I do not have kids yet, but I was in the market today, and I started thinking, when I do....
A woman had her child (maybe a year old?) in the shopping cart while she was ringing up her items at the self-reg. The child had his hand on the side of the cart, and then put his hands to his mouth. After a few seconds, he shifted himself, and then put his hand on another part of the cart, and then back to his mouth.
I started thinking that if I came to the market with my child, I know he/she is going to put his/her hands to his/her mouth at some point (that's what kids do), so I am sanitizing this cart I am putting him/her in. In fact, I am sanitizing everything that my child may touch.
Then I thought - hold on. Is it really better to clean everything? Some things, sure. But everything? Or is it better to let your child get some germs and bacteria, and let them build up their natural immunity?
I found an art that seems interesting. It states in part:
During the first months of life, maternal antibodies protect the child from the microorganisms that the mother has encountered previously. Although water sanitation and hygiene practices have reduced epidemics and vaccines have been developed to prevent potentially lethal diseases, all microorganisms are new for the child. The frequent infections occurring in the first years of life serve to build the pool of memory T and B cells that will prevent reinfection or development of disease by commonly encountered pathogens.
So is it best to not be such a worry wort and let your child encounter foreign microorganisms - like the ones found on a supermarket shopping cart - or sanitize everything you can, and keep your child's exposure down to a bear minimum?
I can only speak from personal experience with one child, but my son is very healthy- has never needed any medical care for any illness in his five years- and we have made no effort to sanitize his life. Our immune systems need opportunities to learn to function if they are to become strong.
Twins here. We were very careful about sanitizing and hygiene early on, and continue to be.
No allergies.
Few significant illnesses.
I would judge our children are healthier than most. They did not get hit by a wave of illnesses when they started going to group settings like preschool. They are healthier than I was as a child, and my parents were less careful about hygiene and sanitation.
In the end, I think immunity is built up either way. Long-term health is probably more tied to good genetics than to anything parents have control over.
The reasons to sanitize stuff for infants are just the obvious ones; Children are more at-risk from dying from "minor" illnesses because they have smaller airways, less fat reserves, less fluid in their bodies (dehydration), less developed thermal regulation (fevers), are less able to care for themselves, and are generally more fragile (in most cases) overall.
There is no "gotcha" waiting in the wings for parents who are careful about their children's health, despite some pop culture best-selling parenting media. We've developed new ways to keep kids safe based on better science and understanding of the natural world, and it's a good idea to implement it.
Moderation is key.
I don't think its a huge deal, but I do see some parents being pretty extreme about exposing their kids to danger and germs. I see a lot of kids going barefoot in my town, toddlers going naked at parks, public sidewalks, and the beach, etc.
While I went barefoot a lot as a child, I lived in the countryside and wasn't stepping on a city's worth of dog crap or the residue from hobo **** or vomit. There are parasites that live in domesticated animal feces or in the bodies (and needles/waste) of druggie vagrants.
Shoelessness, nudity, and free-ranging--just like over-bundling, and helicoptering, should be limited (or unlimited) depending on your child's environment, and not done to prove something to yourself or others.
Going barefoot in a country pasture is different from going barefoot in a city park.
I can only speak from personal experience with one child, but my son is very healthy- has never needed any medical care for any illness in his five years- and we have made no effort to sanitize his life. Our immune systems need opportunities to learn to function if they are to become strong.
Yep.
I have three kids and I never sanitized anything. We had cats and a dog and let the kids crawl on the floor inside and the ground outside. We spent lots of time outside in parks and at the beach. I stayed home with them and we homeschooled for the elementary years so they were not picking up colds and flu in daycare/elementary school. Of course they did have friends and they did get colds once in a while, but nothing serious. Not one of my three has ever been to the doctor because of an illness or allergy. No antibiotics were ever necessary. They are all fully immunized for everything, as well.
Kids are now 17-22 and could not be any healthier.
I do think some kids are naturally more prone to complications of illnesses (such as ear infections after a cold), but environment plays a big role too.
My toddler grandson did the same that op mentioned. He would touch everything and put his hands in his mouth. We sanitized what we could and didn't worry overmuch. That was years ago. He has been very healthy overall. He seems to have built up his immunity.
I don't think its a huge deal, but I do see some parents being pretty extreme about exposing their kids to danger and germs. I see a lot of kids going barefoot in my town, toddlers going naked at parks, public sidewalks, and the beach, etc.
While I went barefoot a lot as a child, I lived in the countryside and wasn't stepping on a city's worth of dog crap or the residue from hobo **** or vomit. There are parasites that live in domesticated animal feces or in the bodies (and needles/waste) of druggie vagrants.
Shoelessness, nudity, and free-ranging--just like over-bundling, and helicoptering, should be limited (or unlimited) depending on your child's environment, and not done to prove something to yourself or others.
Going barefoot in a country pasture is different from going barefoot in a city park.
Rural areas carry their own separate health risks if we're talking about going shoeless. I wouldn't want my kids going shoeless in public, largely because I want them to learn to wear shoes when they go out. But as for disease risk? Meh. As to wearing clothes? Same thing...I'm not about to let my kid go nude. But I don't think the clothes protect against much other than a sunburn.
FWIW my mother was a school nurse; what she did at her office was different than at home.
She did say that kids whose parents were overboard about sanitizing were sick more. She defined "overboard" as those parents that wouldn't touch any door handles or pens in the principles office, and made the kids sanitize as soon as they did.
At her office, she was very clean in disinfecting everything, because she had to see kids that were immunocompromised AND sick kids both at her office every day.
At home? She taught us to wash our hands "as long as it takes to sing the ABC's" when we got home from school, before we had a snack and after the bathroom, etc... She probably disinfected our countertops with some kind of spray when she cleaned them after cooking.
"Not as Clean" and "Not Clean Enough" were distant third cousins. Meaning that although her house was "Not as Clean" as her office, she didn't have sick kids and immunocompromised people coming through all day. And her office was "not as clean" as the Operating Rooms she worked in before working as a school nurse. But her office, and our home, were clean enough.
My mom was a nurse. Practiced washing hands and giving us healthy hygiene habits.
Loved that she didn't become this germaphobe. She let us get muddied up, catch frogs in creeks, go fishing , and pulled ticks off us when out camping ( good idea to wear clothes then too! ).
I think with six kids herd immunity worked wonders! Course we all got the chickenpox at the same time and every belly bug running around our school.
Imagine six kids lined up in a bed too tired to move but passing the bottle of st johns baby aspirin. That was us.
My mom didn't spread neurosis on us kids when it came to sanitary monitoring.
There is a big difference between playground dirt and licking a gas station toilet. I recognized VERY early on that it's impossible to "protect" your child from everything and it's pointless (and counterproductive) to even try. But I do think there needs to be a line somewhere.
My kids are a little older, so there weren't wipes at every store door back then. We did have a "shopping cart cover" kind of thing, and we used it MAYBE three times before I decided it was a pain in the butt. I was out in public places with my 3-day old.
I let them eat whatever they dropped on the floor AT HOME but not in public places. See? I'm a great parent!!
My kids are now teens and are rarely ill - it's everything I can do to make sure they shower every day.
I was never over the top on sanitizing everything when they were small. They had colds and ear infections, and my son had more cases of strep throat than I'd like (which he always got around Mother's day). He grew out of it, and by the time they both hit K, they were rarely sick.
My philosophy is it's ok to play in the dirt, eat dirt and eat that grape off the floor - provided you are at home, and the dog doesn't beat you to it.
Hahahahaha!!!!! You only worry about stuff like this with your first kid - and it looks as if you're worrying ahead of time, before you even have kids. The more you have, the less you worry about this.
By far the biggest source of infection for children is... other children. Parents who don't want the first kid to be sick all the time keep the baby at home, out of daycare, until they're ready for it to get sick. Kids will have two horrible years when they're sick non-stop, all the time. This can start when they enter daycare at 6 weeks old, or when they start kindergarten (or never if they're "homeschooled" and isolated, like some poor victims of sick parents, like the whacko Turpin family).
In my professional opinion, it's best to keep them isolated at home to keep them healthy until they are 2-3 yrs old, if possible, since they're less susceptible to ear infections from colds after this age, but this often just isn't possible for many families. And once you have the second, they get sick from what the first one is bringing home from nursery school.
Sure, you don't want them touching surfaces that other people touch, and then putting their hands in their mouths. But short of Turpinizing them, how you gonna stop it?
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