I’m hearing lot of moms say that it’s ok to let children play in dirt, attend daycare with sick kids, not sanitize the living spaces too much, put dirty stuff in their mouths because they can only build their immune strength by getting sick first(?!).
I have read the hygiene hypothesis paper and many research papers that have disputed that paper aswell so I’m just curious to learn the science behind the idea ‘let them get sick first’.
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You are right that it does sound crazy and it is not recommended health practices. There are some diseases which does not affect kids as much as adults and before we had vaccines people would try to get their kids sick with these diseases before it would be potentially fatal. However other diseases are much more harmful to kids then adults so this was only done for a few specific diseases and the practice mostly stopped once vaccines became available.
There are also studies showing that kids growing up in very clean environments have a greater risk of developing auto immune diseases and asthma. This might have something to do with the immune system not being exposed to harmless chemicals and therefore reacting too strongly once exposed to them. However this should not be taken as advice to intentionally expose kids to dirt as the risk of harmful infections are much greater then the risk of these illnesses. And while playing in the dirt is not that risky to kids unless there is a bacterial outbreak in the area intentionally exposing your kids to other sick kids will shorten their life expectancy.
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