Handwashing

Well, is it “Cleanliness is close to godliness?” or is it “God made dirt, so dirt don’t hurt?”   

I am all for handwashing in most situations when taking care of kiddos. In clinic, I will wash my hands before and after the physical exam of patients to prevent the spread of infection. But are we really expecting our families at home to strive for the same level of meticulousness in cleaning everything with disinfectant and washing hands ad nauseam? Of course not. If you are doing something innately “dirty,” like changing a diaper or wiping a kiddo’s booty, of course, wash your hands. But there is more and more infectious disease and allergy-related research that says kids need to be exposed to dirt and bacteria and other doodads in the world to develop a great immune system, specifically, one for infectious agents that are taken care of by a certain class of cells called eosinophils. Eosinophils used to be the star cell type in the immune system back in the day. They were responsible for fighting off infections due to parasites, and back when we had unclean water and living conditions, these cells were on alert all the time. Nowadays they are not needed as much and will often get bored, and when they get bored, they will try to pick fights with other things in our environment that may resemble certain parts of parasites on a microscopic level, releasing inflammation enzymes and biochemicals that to us are better known as allergies.

We know that the kids with the fewest allergies in the whole world, on average, are kids born on farms. The early exposure to all those different farm animals and bacteria and parasites that come along with them makes for super awesome immune systems that have plenty of things to do instead of getting bored and attacking peanut antigens in the gut. 

So let’s agree on moderation in terms of cleanliness. If your hands are visibly dirty, wash ’em. If you have just done a dirty thing like change a diaper, then wash ’em. If you are at a restaurant, maybe hold off on wiping everything down with Lysol wipes before a kiddo sits there. If you’re at a petting zoo, wash your hands before saying “Hi” to billy goat gruff as well as when you are on your way out of the zoo. But don’t beat yourself up for not washing and disinfecting everything that your kiddo plays with or puts in their mouth. Just think that you are slowly building up their immune system and decreasing their chance of allergies. 

Having said that, there are still bacteria and parasites that do cause severe disease in kiddos, so if there are signs warning about dangerous parasites or algae blooms in your local swimming hole, that does not mean it’s time to suit up and swim to build up a more robust immune system against a more virulent parasite that makes Johnny or Janey really sick.