If your child attends a child-care program, sick days for your kid mean missed work for parents and illness for siblings and other family members. The two most common illnesses that kids in child care catch are viral upper respiratory infections and gastrointestinal illnesses. So what can you do at home to protect your family from illness? Researchers from Harvard University, Tufts-New England Medical Center, and Children's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, studied the families of children attending day care and their hygiene habits to find out.
Two hundred eight families with children between 6 months and 5 years of age who attended child care answered questions about their family's hygiene habits. They noted how often they washed hands using water alone, using plain soap and water, using antibacterial soap and water, or using waterless alcohol-based hand gels. Parents also noted how often family members washed their hands after blowing or wiping a nose, changing a diaper, or using the bathroom. Parents reported the ways they thought diseases were spread - whether through shaking hands with a sick person, touching objects a sick person touched, or kissing a sick person. Parents also kept diaries to record how often members of their family had symptoms of gastrointestinal illness (diarrhea or vomiting) or respiratory illness (runny nose, cough, sore throat, or sneezing).
Almost all of the parents in the survey believed the misconception that colds are often spread by kissing a sick person (that's not a very efficient way for colds to spread). Almost all parents correctly thought that having someone cough or sneeze on them could make them sick, and two thirds of parents believed that shaking hands with a sick person could transmit a cold. But less than half of parents believed that stomach flus could be passed by directly or indirectly having contact with a sick person or by coming in contact with the fecal matter of a sick person.
In addition to having different beliefs about how diseases are transmitted, the families in the study had different hygiene habits. Thirty percent of families used water to clean hands most or all of the time, whereas 90% used soap and 75% used antibacterial soap to clean hands most or all of the time. Twenty-two percent of the families used alcohol-based hand gels all or most of the time, and using the hand gels offered significant protection against respiratory illnesses.
What This Means to You: Don't forget to wash up - making regular hand washing a family habit can prevent illness and missed school and work time. The results of this study also indicate that using alcohol-based hand gels could also reduce the spread of upper respiratory illnesses. Set a good example for your child by lathering up before eating and cooking, after using the bathroom, after cleaning, after touching pets, after blowing one's nose or changing a diaper, or after being outside. To practice hand hygiene on the go, carry some waterless alcohol-based hand gel in your purse or car for those times when getting to a sink isn't possible.
Source: Grace M. Lee, MD, MPH; Joshua A. Salomon, PhD; Jennifer F. Friedman, MD, MPH; Patricia L. Hibberd, MD, PhD; Dennis Ross-Degnan, ScD; Eva Zasloff, BA; Sitso Bediako, BA; Donald A. Goldmann, MD; Pediatrics, April 2005
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD
Date reviewed: April 2005
