I imagine that you know the rest, right?
I am curious what you guys think about hand sanitizer. Do you think it is good, bad, overused, underused?
These days hand sanitizer seems to be the easier alternative to washing your hands. People don't wash their hands with good old fashioned soap and water. They pop out their bottle of Purell and away they go. It seems convenient but are there costs that we are not seeing. I tend to think so. I haven't done any studies and probably never will, I will leave that up for the scientists. But I did do a little research I didn't really find anything that I would trust my life with but some interesting facts.
Children growing up need to be exposed to all kids of germs as they are growing in order for them to have a strong immune system. So if we are constantly sanitizing everything that our children are touching, what are we doing to their immune systems. Are we dooming our children to weak immune systems. People that need to live in a germ free world, which we know isn't going to happen.
The food and drug administration says that hand sanitizer should only be used when washing you hands with soap and water is not possible. Also hand sanitizer should not be used if the hands are visibly soiled. Now in my mind, there are not a lot of places where you cannot get to a sink to wash your hand with soap and water. On this same vein of thinking, there are studies that show that the only way to effectively sanitize your hands is to wash them with soap and water.
In the long term, a concern is rising that bacteria, which are known to mutate, will become immune to anti-bacterials creating super-bacteria. That sounds bad and I don't want to get one.
One more thought that I have on the subject...Isn't the purpose of these products to cut down on sickness? People that I know who use hand sanitizers get sick just like me that won't use hand sanitizers. This doesn't make sense to me, does it to you?
Tell me what you think.
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6 comments:
We generally don't wash our daughter Cadence with water and soap... it's just too unreliable. About once a week we'll let her see soap and water but just not touch it. The question we need to ask ourselves is WWJWW (What Would Jesus Wash With of course). I think Jesus would use the elixer that is proven to kill 99.9% of all germs it comes into contact. I mean really, germs live in water! Jesus wouldn't wash in a germ habitat! If Purell's good enough for Jesus it's good enough for me.
I'm a country man...I only wash my hands after using the laboratory. I take a shower if I was sweating like a pig or saw the back side of an Irish dirt hole. I use the same dishes till my wife refuses to feed me. I wash my clothes when they have visible dirt or unbearable smells (which inevitably means my socks get washed once a week...damn my genetic mutant smelly feet). So, if you want my opinion on sanitizer...well, I think the stuff was made for city folk and ballerinas.
Nathan...first I wasn't talking about cleaning your entire baby. Second, soap and water are proven to disinfect while hand sanitizer has never been tested on hands. And not all hand sanitizer have the required amount of alcohol to be 99.9% effective in the testing they do.
i knew i married the right man! :)
people that use hand sanitizer end up with kids like my brother (the one with ocd) and that is NOT an exagerration!
or they use it instead of soap and water and end up killing the skin on their hands (and this is not even obsessive cleaning! just normal "hand washing" when it is appropriate) it's enough for me to say no thank you!
besides, soap and water are cheaper....
and jesus definitely would have wanted to save the money
colette
We started using it a lot right after Tyler was born and I got a nasty case of contact dermatitis. My hands were cracked and bleeding. Soap is much better! You guys will see when you start obsessively washing your hands once your little one is here!
Elizabeth "Whitlow" Pickens
I hardly ever wash my hands (yes after changing a diaper or going to the rest room... but come on... ) and my daughter doesn't get sick, and there is nothing weird growing off of her skin. When I do use soap I try to use the food based soaps (yeah I'm a hippie...) that don't completely dry your skin out (cause cracked bleeding skin is not my idea of fun). As far as Sati goes I use a wet wipe on her occasionally but other than that it's just water and mineral/oat oil. Like I said she's a happy baby, without any horrible deceases. But you already know how I think...
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