No, babies should not live in a completely sanitized universe. A new study shows that before the age of 1, babies exposed to unsavory things, like rodents, pet dander, cockroach allergens or household-related bacteria, are actually less likely to suffer from allergies or asthma than others…
Published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology , it reveals, like other studies before, that exposure to allergens in very early childhood is good. To come to such a conclusion, Johns Hopkins researchers studied 467 children from downtown New York, Boston and St. Louis. They tracked their health over three years while visiting their homes to calculate allergen levels and varieties. They also performed allergy tests on children and collected bacteria from homes from dust collected by the household.
> Results:Children who lived in homes inhabited by mice, cats and cockroaches during their first year had lower rates of wheezing by age 3. Those with a higher amount of bacteria in their home were also less likely to have environmental allergies.
They also observed that those with zero traces of allergies were generally from households with the highest amount of allergens and bacteria.
The explanation for these results is rather simple:growing up in an environment kept sterile – hello bleach-obsessed mother – does not help develop immunity to allergens.
Morality:the next time you see baby on 4 legs playing with the bristles of the broom or kissing the soles of his shoes, KEEP COOL.
