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Day Care and Colds

By Henry J. Fishman, M.D.
ConsumerAffairs.com

October 17, 2005

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Kids in day care have more colds early in life and fewer later on, according to an article published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Doctors studied 991 kids. They found that kids in large day care centers had almost twice as many colds at age 2 as kids who stayed home.

However, later on, elementary school kids ages 6 to 11 who attended day care as toddlers had one third as many colds as kids who did not attend day care.

By the age of 13, day care and home kids had about the same rate. How come?

Well apparently, exposing toddlers to germs led to colds but also stimulated their immune system to fight infection later on.

In other words, they developed some immunity. These results support the idea that exposing kids early in life to germs helps prevent infections and allergies later on in life.

While experts don't all agree with this, and you don't want to purposely get your kids sick, going to day care early may, over the long term, help your kids stay healthy.

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