Places Your Child Might be Picking Up Viruses

 

It’s no secret that children have less well-developed immune systems, which means that they can easily get sick. Studies estimate that the average child can catch between six and 10 cold every year. But where are they coming into contact with all of those germs? Here are some of the most popular places they might be contracting them so that you can better protect against germs.

One of the most common places your child might be picking up bacteria is during their sports practices or other after-school activities. It seems like a fairly straightforward idea, as they touch a lot of equipment and uniforms that have been shared by others. However, it occurs in almost every sport that they might be participating in. For example, have you thought about the amount of bacteria they can pick up by participating in gymnastics? Approximately 5.4 million children aged six and older participated in this sport in 2016 alone.

There are also other public places that could be to blame, such as restaurants. That’s right, picking up restaurant bacteria is a real issue since you’re not always sure who came in before you or how thoroughly your table was wiped down. And since flu viruses can live on a hard surface for up to two days, even a seemingly clean restaurant might have lots of bacteria that could end up getting your child sick. This means that you can’t always guarantee your favorite restaurant is completely void of restaurant bacteria.

On the same note, some of these germs might be coming from their own toys or electronics that they come into contact with on a regular basis including their daycare. Daycare cleaning is incredibly important to keep all of the children coming and going healthy regardless of what they were doing. However, sometimes daycare cleaning procedures don’t always take everything into account. For instance, they can’t stop children from sharing their toys with one another, and by then the damage might have already been done. And that’s the problem.

So protecting children from illness is a little harder than you might have imagined. But you can protect them by encouraging them to participate in healthy behaviors such as washing their hands regularly. The CDC always recommends 15 to 20 seconds with soap and water to make sure that those germs don’t stick around.