Daycare Doesn’t Bolster Immune Systems, Researchers Say

Miami, FL (AHN) – The belief that a child’s immune system is strengthened against asthma, allergies and respiratory illnesses from being exposed to sick children in young childhood at daycare is being challenged.

While attending daycare is almost certain to cause a child to get sick more often than his peers, any benefit to being exposed to illness disappears by the time the child turns 8 years old, Dr. Johan de Jongste, the principal investigator of the study, said in a statement.

De Jongste, from Erasmus University in the Netherlands, said sending a child to daycare early only shifts the time he gets a respiratory ailment to earlier in the child’s life, when it is more difficult to deal with.

He and his colleagues concluded that early daycare should not be promoted to prevent respiratory illness and allergies later in life.

The study will be published in the Sept. 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

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