The comments to offbeatmama's post contain some absolute gems themselves. Some made me laugh, some made me cry, some made me dry-heave, some made me have conniptions. Without further ado:
"As for the baby wipes, we use Earth First natural wipes. They're thicker – so I don't feel like I'm wiping poop onto my hands every time she messes her diaper."
Oh really? They feel thick, so that you feel like you aren't getting fecal matter on your hands, so you feel like you are exempt from washing after changing a poopy diaper. Nice.
Another:
"My mother still remarks on the difference between my cousin and I healthwise when we were growing up. My mother had too much life going on to much more than once a week laundry day and give the house what she referred to as 'a lick and a promise' Not an actual lick you understand, though the photos of me as a baby licking the floor might dispute that. I was a remarkably healthy child, I was off school sick once in eleven years ( several times with concussion having fallen out of trees etc)
"My aunt on the other hand sterilised everything she could and cleaned, polished, vacumed every surface every day. Outdoor clothes and shoes had to be removed in the hall and exchanged before entering the rest of the house and hands had to be washed every hour on the hour (yes really) as well as after going to the lavatory etc.
"I've never known a house smell more of cleaning products and air fresheners. My cousin had incessant colds, coughs, chest infections, ear infections and to this day having left home some 10 years previously still has almost no immunity to germs. Of course she could just be predisposed to be particuarly prone but my mother maintains it's because she was never allowed to build up an immunity."
Doesn't this...doesn't this go against the Hygiene Hypothesis* itself? I mean, don't people love to spout off how "good" it is when kids get sick, that getting sick now means fewer illnesses later? So really, this person's cousin was doing her body good by the "incessant colds, coughs, chest infections, and ear infections"? But wait? Why didn't they build up her immune system? Oh yeah because the HH is p. much bunk. We covered that already.
Continuing:
"True Story: A professor of medicine at Oxford University, where I used to work back then, once told us that when his son & dil came by with their young infant, he was very worried by their sterile approach to child-hygiene. Whenever they would leave the room and he was alone with his grandchild, he would quickly get the pacifier, rub it on the carpet, and stuff it back in the infant's mouth. With his knowledge of immunology he knew that a child NEEDS to 'eat dirt' to build up a good immune system."
WHAT the FUCK? I don't even have words for this. A young infant needs to ingest germs that are on the carpet of a house like I need a hole in my head. Babies re BOMBARDED by germs and infectious agents from the second they enter this world, germs that cannot be avoided, many that you don't need to avoid, but plenty that you should try to. Nobody needs to fucking LICK THE CARPET (especially a tiny infant), which this amounts to. Unreal. If I found out my relative had done this, I would KILL THEM IN THE FACE.
"I remember my parents telling the story of my oldest younger brother (try saying that three times fast!) eating a roach when he was a baby. Our mother was like, "meh." Our dad? Complete freak out. He was convinced that Michael was going to get dysentery from it. Of course he was fine and ended up with the strongest immune system of the four of us.
Hear hear! Roaches for one and all! Clearly it was the roach that gave him the immune system of steel. There can be no other explanation.
Let's continue:
"LOL! So true!!! A little dirt never hurt anyone!"
LOL! Except when there's listeria in it and the mother ingests it through one of several ways and it kills babies in utero! LOL! Or when there's tainted manure in it and it gets on our cantaloupes and causes E. Coli outbreaks and kills thousands! LOL! But a little dirt never hurt anyone! LOL!
"We are a pretty natural family. My daughter has had bad ear infections in the past, and thanks to countless antibitotics she doesnt respond to treatment like she once did. Letting it run its course as long as she is not deathly ill has become the better option."
Letting...letting ear infections "run their course"?? Up until the moment the kid is"deathly ill"? Am I reading her correctly? Is she fucking insane? Yeah, because ear infections "just go away." And I'm sure the kid wouldn't mind being in excruciating pain and having a ruptured ear drum or two. Screw antibiotics. Let's let infections just do their thang. We're natural like that.
I can't even go on. Some people. The stupid burns.
My understanding is that the hygiene hypothesis isn't that "exposure to germs makes you get sick less in the long term" - it's that exposure to too few germs makes you susceptable to allergies.
ReplyDeleteThis makes some sense because we (and our immune systems) evolved in an environment with a certain level of germ exposure which is probably much higher than what most of us have now, so our immune systems ferociously attack harmless things like pollen grains and cat dander just because there's nothing else to attack.
Even if this is the case though, it doesn't seem like eating dirt is a good idea - it trades one problem (allergies) for another (getting sick from infections).
Maybe somebody needs to invent some kind of harmless "practice germs" to keep our immune systems busy until a real problem comes along, at which point we can take something that just kills all the practice germs.
Yeah, I've mentioned elsewhere that one main problem with the HH is that people wildly misinterpret it and run around shrieking, "Yay hooray, little Jayden has the stomach flu, he'll be stronger for it in the long run!" or "Yippee, little McKayla has food poisoning, her immune system will be stronger!" What? But some scientists themselves have differing opinions on the HH even when interpreted correctly. I'm no scientist but I do disagree with many of its concepts.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the article I was referencing was just so over the top...anyone who is lazy about washing their hands is just gross in my book.
Letting an ear infection run its course? Sounds like someone who'd let a UTI run its course...a little kidney infection never hurt anyone LOL!
ReplyDeleteRight Ches! Rub some dirt on it!
ReplyDeleteI always rub dirt on my kidney infections, right after I lick the carpet.
ReplyDeleteJo, this has nothing to do with anything, but that angel picture at the end of this post abso-freakin-lutely made my day. Really.
ReplyDeletechesea....I used to get UTI's every time my immune system was down. I only took Antibiotics for it 1x, the other times it was enough to cut out ALL SUGAR minus that I got from drinking 1l of unsweetned Cranberry juice, and taking Acidophilus to help boost my natural flora. It worked as long as you catch it early, once it's really in there, it can be harder to get rid of. Let's not forget antibiotics are a rather new thing and people I am sure didn't die from UTI before them. Drugs ARE overprescribed. Period. This has nothing to do with Hygeine though.
ReplyDeleteJaime: While I fully agree that abx are overprescribed by docs and misused by patients, I absolutely disagree that "people didn't die from UTIs before them." They most certainly did! UTIs can progress to kidney infections, which can and do kill people, even in this day and age, and CERTAINLY in older times. Before abx, people could attempt to employ natural methods, and could hope that their own immune system along with a high fever would eventually kill the infection, but infections killed people all the time before abx were discovered. People still die of infections even now. Even from something as simple as a UTI.
ReplyDeleteOh for fuck sakes. AGAIN. Remind me to always copy and paste my comments somewhere else, cause I just lost another one that took me eons to write.
ReplyDeleteIt went something like this: I feel like this post is just as low as those mom's giving you a hard time for your OCD tendencies. I don't think mockery or attacks should happen one way or another. Just like you are unlikely to give your child leukemia through lack of exposure, so too am I unlike to give my child e.coli through her eating a mouthful of garden soil while helping me garden.
Just saying...
I think it's about balance. I don't sanitize Evangeline head to toe everything we come home from the grocery store, not do I tell her to lick the pole on the Toronto subways. I teach her cleanliness and how to try and help keep viruses at bay, via handwashing, covering one's mouth when they cough, not licking public surfaces and eating a healthy well balanced diet(included having been breastfed for nearly 19 months). My goal is to teach her how to have a normal relationship with germs, not lack, nor extreme.
Jaime....(it's now saying I don't own my own identity lol)
Balance is fine...but don't you think offbeatmama's post was extreme in itself? She said outright she's OK with (and would prefer) her child eating DOG SHIT than wiping their hands or butt with baby wipes. I think that's extreme, and I was pointing out the extremeness and ridiculousness of it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's QUITE likely that you'll give your child an illness or a parasite by letting her eat dogshit, whereas it's UNlikely that my child will get leukemia if I sanitize her hands once too often. I think this entry doesn't compare with those people attacking me elsewhere.
But to each their own.
"My goal is to teach her how to have a normal relationship with germs, not lack, nor extreme."
Well...that's because you're not the one with OCD. I am. That's what this blog is about. Why would you come to a blog about OCD and expect to read about a "normal relationship with germs"?
About the UTI thing again-While traveling in Peru, I got sick sick sick from food poisoning, I was on a small island, where there were no drugs, as we know and use them, only natural remedies that grow on the earth and a medicine man who is an expert on them. I got sick sick sick, they made some gross tea, I sweat like and SOB and slept lots and in the morning, I was all better. The fact that they have a strong, surviving populations sans allopathic med's means they obviously do work. I do think alot of it has to do with their VERY clean diet, since they eat what they grow and only very limited meats. No antibiotics except in the big city centers which take hours to get to. They would NOT go to that trouble for a UTI, UNLESS it was in kidneys and the person was very very sick. Thus at least 8/10 times it passes just with systems cleansing and rest. I think modern medicine is amazing and helps us live longer lives and is very welcome, but I still maintain drugs are WAY over prescribed and should be a last resort, after letting body try and do it's own thing. There is something to be said for the way our ancestors handled things.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, my comment was not, in anyway meant as an attack. It was just an observation, I will address more clearly and try and get across, gently, what I was trying to say.
ReplyDelete"...don't you think offbeatmama's post was extreme in itself?"
Yes, I do. I wasn't defending her view at all, she is to opposite extreme of you.
When I said: "I feel like this post is just as low as those mom's giving you a hard time for your OCD tendencies. I don't think mockery or attacks should happen one way or another."
I was not referring to offbeatmama and her comment about kids eating dog poo. I was referring to the many, many commentators being made fun of in your post. I felt like the purpose of this post was nothing more then a long entry about how all these mom's were so obviously the wrong one's, not you. Which to me, is equally mean and judgmental as the people who turn their judging eyes on your and OCD tendencies. Wrong in both directions. You are not 100% right, they are not 100% right.
I just wanted to say, I love reading this blog, but don't want to partake in mom's bashing mom's as a rule, cause it's hard no matter how you look at it.
I DO read your blog to educated myself and learn what it's like to be a mom living with OCD. So when you say "Why would you come to a blog about OCD and expect to read about a "normal relationship with germs"?
My answer is I don't...I don't judge you either, I come here to see the world through your eyes. Hopefully that does not become a 90% of the world is wrong blog though, cause that is a different story. I am open to learning about how dirty my world is, but I don't want to partake in 101 ways other people are so very wrong when we are the majority here and you are the one struggling to make peace with your illness. (As am I with MY anxiety disorder). That included trying to find balance for the sake of your children, not letting lick public slides, but not passing the OCD on to them either.
I totally DO NOT come here to read about a normal relationship with germs though, not ever.
Does this make any sense?
your pics are hilarious...they make me laugh out loud repeatedly...that is all.
ReplyDeleteSo glad, Thea. I have a lot of fun with them. :)
ReplyDelete