Why is it not good to kiss babies?

Why is it not good to kiss your baby? There is a cognitive tendency called the “curse of knowledge” (or sometimes the “curse of expertise”). It occurs when you wrongly assume that everyone knows as much as you about a certain subject.

As a clinical microbiologist, Primrose Freestone, senior lecturer in clinical microbiology at the University of Leicester (England), thought it was self-evident that kissing a newborn on the head was an extremely bad idea.

Dr. Karan Raj, an NHS surgeon, recently published a videoclip pe TikTok in which he tells why it is not good to kiss your baby, and judging by the thousands of comments, many users of the platform considered the information to be news.

Late last year, UK charity The Lullaby Trust published the results of a survey which found that 54% of current or expectant parents would allow friends and family to kiss their newborn without them being aware of it. the risks of a serious infection.

But why is kissing your baby so dangerous?

A surgeon tells why it’s not good to kiss your baby

A baby’s immune system is not fully developed at birth, which significantly increases the risk of contracting a serious infection.

In the first three months of life, infants’ immune systems have fewer innate infection-fighting immune cells, such as neutrophils and monocytes, compared to adults. Because of this, infections that cause mild symptoms in adults or older children can become life-threatening for a baby, points out Science Alert.

An example is herpes virus infection. In adults, herpes usually causes cold sores, but babies can become seriously ill after coming into contact with the virus.

If the infection only affects the baby’s eyes, mouth or skin, most cases can recover with antiviral treatment. But if the virus becomes systemic and reaches the baby’s organs, the infection can be much more serious and even fatal. The younger the baby, the more vulnerable it is to herpes infection, especially in the first four weeks after birth.

Vulnerability to bacteria

Newborns are also more vulnerable to infectious bacteria than older children or adults. They are particularly susceptible to infections caused by intracellular bacteria (which can enter and survive in host cells), such as group B streptococci (GBS).

These bacteria often live in the gastrointestinal and genital tract of the host without causing disease. However, GBS infections in babies can lead to septicemia, pneumonia, meningitis and blood infections.

Babies are also vulnerable to infections with certain strains E. coli which do not affect adults but can cause pneumonia, meningitis or septicemia in infants, all with potentially serious results.

Parents should feel confident asking visitors to avoid kissing or touching the baby. If visitors are concerned about the baby’s well-being, they should not feel offended by such a request.

The most caring action on the part of a visitor is to avoid exposing the baby to risk. However, if there is a good reason why you need to kiss your baby, there are measures that can reduce the risk of infection: wash your hands thoroughly; eyou can kiss the baby on the mouth or the face, you can kiss the leg or the back of the head; if you have an active infection, think seriously about whether it is necessary to visit the baby, especially if he is less than a month old; if you have cold sores, cover the lesions with a bandage; if you are sick but need to visit your child, wear a mask and avoid getting too close, especially if you have a respiratory condition.

Always keep in mind that babies are extremely vulnerable to infections. Although cooing is a form of the condition, it can endanger the health of a newborn and no one would want to be the cause of suffering.

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Source: www.descopera.ro