I have to make it understood that my super research sample is based on just two kids. However, it got me thinking.
I know a friend of mine has a first born daughter who has a LOT of allergies and has to take shots for them. I know my friend is like me and kept everything super clean for her first born.
I still remember when my daughter's pacifier dropped on the ground, I put it in water I had boiled to sanitize it. It melted. When my son was born three years later and dropped his pacifier I dusted it off on my pants and gave it back to him. Let's just say, I was a LOT more relaxed with the 2nd child.
My son grew up to join the Peace Corps and live in a dusty African village eating heaven knows what and aside from malaria, did not seem to have developed any allergies.
My daughter, on the other hand is having to get allergy shots every month.
I've heard that other developing countries rarely have peanut allergies. At one time, wasn't there a rule about not giving anything with peanuts to children under a year or something like that? I can't remember.
My daughter, like me was very careful with our granddaughter and kept everything clean for her. My son, on the other hand is VERY relaxed with his sons. I wonder if anyone will develop allergies. It would be interesting to see.
When my children were little I remember my mother watching me and saying something to the effect that a child ingesting a teaspoon of dirt a day is not a bad thing. She reminded me that I played in the dirt all the time when I was young.
Well....I wouldn't go THAT far... but I'm wondering. Can we be too clean?
I know a friend of mine has a first born daughter who has a LOT of allergies and has to take shots for them. I know my friend is like me and kept everything super clean for her first born.
I still remember when my daughter's pacifier dropped on the ground, I put it in water I had boiled to sanitize it. It melted. When my son was born three years later and dropped his pacifier I dusted it off on my pants and gave it back to him. Let's just say, I was a LOT more relaxed with the 2nd child.
My son grew up to join the Peace Corps and live in a dusty African village eating heaven knows what and aside from malaria, did not seem to have developed any allergies.
My daughter, on the other hand is having to get allergy shots every month.
I've heard that other developing countries rarely have peanut allergies. At one time, wasn't there a rule about not giving anything with peanuts to children under a year or something like that? I can't remember.
My daughter, like me was very careful with our granddaughter and kept everything clean for her. My son, on the other hand is VERY relaxed with his sons. I wonder if anyone will develop allergies. It would be interesting to see.
When my children were little I remember my mother watching me and saying something to the effect that a child ingesting a teaspoon of dirt a day is not a bad thing. She reminded me that I played in the dirt all the time when I was young.
Well....I wouldn't go THAT far... but I'm wondering. Can we be too clean?
I have pondered this as well, I was overly protective about cleanliness, I know that, I still am, I do believe there is truth in what they say, we can be too clean, exposure to germs helps build a healthy resistance, it’s hard to change my ways though.
ReplyDelete'You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die' - a common saying in my family - but I can't shake off my need to 'be clean'. However, it is counteracted by the natural immunity that comes from having lots of pets!
ReplyDeletei have always leaned in the dirt direction. i NEVER use hand sanitizers. i saw something recently where it showed a child sitting in a mud puddle and under it read: the best immunity you can give a child.
ReplyDeleteI think we can. We need to be exposed to germs to develop immunities. Still it is hard today with all the virulent diseases not to wash the skin off my hands.
ReplyDeleteever since I had a bad bad abscess on my leg I became germaphobic!
ReplyDeleteI read a study once about two towns across a river from each other and in different countries. Children on the one side of the river where the norm was to be super clean developed more allergies than on the other side where the norm was more relaxed. My daughter in NH is very lax about cleanliness, though after playing outside granddaughters wash their hands. But they go barefoot all the time and play in the yard, handle all sorts of critters, help in the garden and they are both allergy free.
ReplyDeleteFerry worthwhile questions, Kay
ReplyDeleteI'm no scientist but my pediatrician wasn't the type to have us sterilize everything. In fact, she said don't do it. Of course with the first born, I sterilized the first couple of times but then stopped. I just did normal washing after that and both my kids have no allergies. Our friends who used to sterilize after every feeding had kids on nebulizer. My kids never got an ear infection and only once on anti-biotics. I also casually rinsed pacifiers if they fell. hmmm, something to ponder.
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend.
De
Gosh! You just never know. I have two people who were the youngest in the family (they read this blog post) tell me they have tons of allergies even though their parents should have been relaxed by the time they came along. They tell me their older siblings don't have allergies. Sigh. So much for my theory.
DeleteYes and no. It could also be the chemicals in sanitizers wreck havoc on young developing infants' immune systems.
ReplyDeleteI also do not believe in antibiotics. My son (1st born) is living proof of that. When he was about 2 years old, he developed a cough and I was taking him to the doctor every few weeks. He would be given a prescription for 10 days of antibiotics, which seemed to help, then right after that, his cough would return. More antibiotics. I was even told that he had bronchitis and it would soon turn into asthma. So, more antibiotics.
Thankfully, a friend of mine had asthma (and would blame my messy house for her attacks) and met a herbalist neighbor who turned her onto natural tinctures - red clover combination in particular. I started my son on herbal remedies, it didn't taste great but he was a good kid and listened to me (back then, lol). He coughed a lot, then coughed less and less. The tinctures cleared his lungs out of mucous rather than suppress and dry it up. He hardly got sick after that.
He was always, however, a hypochondriac. He loved the nurse aide at his elementary school and would feign an ache or pain so he could stay in her office (he hated school, or was it that his teachers disliked him?)
My number 2 was never ever sick. She was my nature child and would put all kinds of things in her mouth. To this day, she is still the healthiest one and loves to eat and eat and eat.
Who knows what is the right way? For me, it was doing what I thought best with the least, and easiest amount of effort.
Sigh... I know what you mean. You just never know. My son would probably be laughing at my theory saying I shouldn't be basing my theory on a few anecdotal stories. He works for Johns Hopkins so he tends to be skeptical when I come up with too many quick assumptions.
DeleteThat is a valid concern Kay.
ReplyDeleteMy children grew up to have no allergies. I wonder what that says about my housekeeping!?
ReplyDeleteI honestly can say I am not to clean.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on
It's a theory. I am unaware of any scientific evidence, which is not to say that it doesn't exist because I am not aware of much. I wonder what sort of experiment could prove or disprove such anecdotal reports.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's possible to be too clean, and also possible to be too dirty. I think our children get immunities in many ways, not the least of which is from being exposed to germs and developing coping mechanisms. Good topic, Kay. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat can happen is that we are not exposed to certain things that give us immunity. I have allergies. I was brought up on a farm and worked in every aspect of the operation.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I understand about allergies since I have an anaphylactic allergy to seafood, if one parent has an allergy, kids have a 50% chance of being allergic. With two parent it ups the ante to almost 100%. My bro had childhood allergies left and right and childhood asthma. Mom was told he'll eventually outgrow them but he still got severe hives on occasion (but not to seafood). I was fine until my 20s when I started developing allergies before that strong as an ox. My doc told me that being allergic to foods results in (over) exposure to them and his 70 yo dad developed a seafood allergy. So my doc will not allow his daughter to eat seafood until she's 10 yo. Makes sense I was developing occasional reactions to seafood and never thought it was an allergy. Just thought it was 'old' seafood maybe. Now I know - my body was giving me warnings until out of no where I suffered an anaphylactic reaction which could have been my last. -BB
ReplyDeleteHmmmm... This could explain some of my friends. Then again, neither Art nor I have really bad allergies and there's my poor daughter suffering through hay fever season. Then again, I can get stress hives and both my kids have inherited that.
DeleteMost people seem to be that way.
ReplyDeleteIf they have a 6th kid, it probably goes something like
"if he dies, he dies."
okay, maybe not really but they're not stressing it as bad.
Growing up out on the farm, we were not very clean, and I and all of my siblings have always been healthy and disease resistant. My kids both have allergies. I kept things clean. Who knows.
ReplyDeleteCheck out my post https://sightingsat60.blogspot.com/2019/02/let-them-eat-dirt.html to see what my wife B -- and epidemiologist Rob Dunn -- have to say about it.
ReplyDeleteI checked it out. So interesting that B and I had the same experience with shrimp.
DeleteI didn't fret about dropped pacifiers. When my son was about 2, one time I intentionally made mud in a garden area, stripped him down to his diaper and let him play in it! He wasn't prone to eating mud pies, but had fun. It's a cute photo. He had a weird allergy and asthma, but playing in the dirt when gardening at 31 years old doesn't bother him. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteTo be honest we wouldn't do this in Hawaii right now because we've got the rat lung disease with teeny tiny slugs that carry the disease. We're in the tropics so too many bacteria and other yucky things in the dirt. Then again, I sure played in the dirt when I was little.... Lots and lots of dirt.
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