RELAX ABOUT HYGIENE AND LITTLE ONES WILL BENEFIT
THE EXPERT
DR SHUAYB Elkhalifa, of Greater Manchester Immunology Service, believes we can all can learn some lessons from Sarah’s mum. There have been so many studies on the reasons behind the increase in everything including asthma, allergies and infections that I could talk about this until tomorrow. But they all boil down to one thing: our children are too clean. Because of the antibacterial cleaners and strong antibiotics, viruses are becoming stronger and more resistant.
So in hospital, yes, we need to keep everything stringently clean. But at home we don’t need to be so strict because the immune system needs to come in to contact with germs to distinguish which ones are harmful and which are harmless.
I have an 18-month-old son, and when he drops food on the floor we pick it up, wipe it and give it back.
Studies comparing health of rural and urban people show that those living on farms have stronger immune systems. So often we visit a little petting zoo, because seeing animals in their own environment helps boost children’s immunity.
It’s time to relax a bit about hygiene – your kids’ health will benefit.
Hygiene around kids has changed an awful lot. I recently thought about buying my granddaughters Ellie and Holly a pyjama case, then realised they only ever put their nighties in the washing bin so a pyjama case would be completely redundant.
And when I gave Sarah and Dale nice tea towels for their first wedding anniversary, Sarah looked at them and said: “What do I do with these?”
She puts everything in the dishwasher. I still have dishcloths but wash them every night and I don’t see anything wrong with that. But whenever Sarah’s at my house and sees my cloths, she rolls her eyes a lot.
Whenever I’ve taken Ellie and Holly to the safari park, I’ve been amazed to see hand sanitiser everywhere. When my girls were young we took them to an animal petting zoo then sat down to enjoy a picnic. We hadn’t a thought for sanitising our hands – although we might have washed them, at a push.
Sometimes I worry Sarah is making life hard for herself because she’s constantly cleaning. At the same time, I’m full of admiration because her house is pristine, whereas two minutes after Ellie and Holly arrive at my house, it looks as if a tractor’s driven through it.
But I do feel today’s kids are too clean and that’s why there are so many colds and bugs, because kids live in such sterile environments they can’t build up immunity. There never seems to be a week when my granddaughters’ friends aren’t off school to get over some sort of sickness.
When I was bringing up my kids, I don’t remember hearing about superbugs in hospitals, and that was before all this over-cleaning carry-on.
When matrons were in charge of hospital wards, pride and strict standards kept the wards spick and span. And I’m sure they had no hand sanitiser and plenty of cloths.