"And usually their illnesses are relatively short-lived and rarely complicated. "Usually the parents are not getting fevers," said Robert Jacobson, a professor of pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. There is some good news here: Experience with previous similar viruses or bacteria will provide some protection, meaning the sickness in the parent won’t be as intense or as long-lasting as the sickness in the poor kid. They also commonly pick up upper respiratory tract infections and flus - both caused by viruses that change all the time and that catch our immune systems off guard. If kids have a bout of chickenpox, and the parent had chickenpox as a child, the parent will be spared, since most people develop lifelong immunity to the varicella-zoster virus after battling it.īut kids don’t merely get diseases that parents already have lifelong protection from. Some of the bugs kids bring home are the kinds that parents don’t develop lasting immunity to. Shouldn’t they already have strong immune protection? You may have wondered why, if parents have already gone through the rounds of achy childhood illness, they then go through them again with their young children. 2) Kids get sick with infections that parents don’t develop lifelong immunity to "These social factors put them more at risk," Milstone added. It’s not uncommon to see them stick their hands in their nose, mouth, or diaper - or other kids’ noses, mouths, and diapers - and licking toys picked up off the ground. The other reason small kids get sick all the time is their less-than-hygienic behavior. (Note: Those are only the studies on colds.) And if a child gets a virus she's never had before, because she has no preexisting protection, her illness is typically going to be more intense and last longer.Īccording to a review of the evidence on how long it takes symptoms to resolve in children, the range was staggering: It took 25 days for an acute cough to resolve, 15 days to clear a common cold, and 16 days to get rid of a nonspecific respiratory tract infection. So it’s no surprise researchers have found that kids younger than 6 get about six to eight colds per year. "But those antibodies go away and kids become immunologically naive," he added. When babies are born, they are protected by immunity their mothers have passed down to them during pregnancy. "They have no preexisting immunity," explained Aaron Michael Milstone, an epidemiologist and professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. This makes them much more susceptible to getting sick, particularly from highly infectious cold and flu viruses. When children mingle with lots of strangers for the first time, usually in day care, their immune systems are being exposed to bacteria and viruses they’ve never seen before. 1) Kids’ immune systems are developing, so they pick up everything I asked several pediatricians and infectious diseases specialists about what’s going on, and they pointed to at least four factors that conspire to make the already exhausting early parenting years a little more vomit- and flu-ridden. If you or your friends with young children seem to be getting sick a lot more compared with the pre-kid days, it’s not your imagination. While it’s great to shuffle small children out of the house for the day, it also means they’ll be mingling in a cesspool of germs with other children - and bringing those bugs back to the rest of the family. Now we’re heading into back-to-school season, which Adriana and many other parents confront with a mixture of relief and dread. "But even if you wash their hands and douse the house with bleach, when they get home from day care they still manage to infect everything and everyone." "We’ve tried everything to not get sick," she told me recently. She also fondly refers to them as "walking, talking bacteria spreaders." My dear friend Adriana loves her two little boys very, very much. Dear Julia: Why are the parents of young kids sick all the time? Which over-the-counter painkillers work best? Is it better to run or walk for exercise? Do fasting diets really work? Julia Belluz sifts through the research and consults with experts in the field to figure out how science can help us live happier and healthier lives. Welcome to Dear Julia, a column where readers submit everyday health questions.
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