Dirt & dust are good for your child’s health

We’re suffering from being far too clean

Do you follow the five-second rule by picking up and eating food that’s been on the floor less than five seconds in the belief the food won’t be contaminated with too many germs?

And if you are a parent with a baby do you suck a dummy that has fallen on the ground and put it back in your baby’s mouth?

Well, both things could be good for us because it helps develop a strong immune system.

A Swedish study carried out in 2013 showed that children whose parents just sucked their dummies clean had a lower risk of developing eczema. Surprising isn’t it?

But it points to a modern condition. We’re suffering from being too clean.

We live in a world of clean and disinfected surfaces, where even small children who pick things up and put them in their mouths aren’t coming into contact with enough germs.

A 2016 study of Amish children, growing up on small single-family farms “rich in microbes” found they had strikingly low rates of asthma.

According to Dr Gilbert of Chicago University and a co-author of a book called Dirt Is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System, this is because we’re obsessed with cleanliness.

And yes, hygiene has saved many children from sickness and death, but we evolved to grow up alongside household microbes and there are negative consequences from living in ever-cleaner homes.

Maria Dominguez-Bello from New York University says modern habits can interfere with this early exposure to germs at every turn. Babies may be born by Caesarean section, without exposure to the birth canal and its bacteria; they may be bottle-fed instead of breast-fed; they may sleep far away from their mother; and they may well be treated with antibiotics for one infection or another.

These are all factors that prevent the healthy exposure of infants to friendly bacteria which guide their immune systems to maturity.

“We used to live in much dustier environments,” said Marsha WillsKarp, a professor of environmental health at Johns Hopkins University.

“Studies have shown that priming or seeding of the microbiome in the child is absolutely critical. While you don’t want to go out and expose a child to aggressive infections, you don’t want to create such a sterile environment that their immune system doesn’t develop normally. It puts them at risk of developing immune diseases, such as asthma, eczema and allergies.”

Cleanliness is not next to godliness. Not for our kids, anyway.