Does Having Young Children Really Strengthen Your Immune System?

 

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but many moms and dads believe that having a young child or two around the house boosts their immune system.  It's easy to see why this idea has some popular appeal.  After all, young children typically have lots of contact with other young children, often in environments where lots of germs can be spread.  The kids then bring these same germs home, where parents' immune systems need to fight them off over a sustained period of time.  The thinking goes that this, in turn, helps make parents more resistant to them.

 

It's an interesting topic with a lot of anecdotal feedback related to it.  Personally, it's my experience that young children in day care tend to have more colds than those who stay at home.  I'm not sure if this correlates to healthier parents or not, but while looking into this topic, I found some interesting studies.  Let's look at those.

One study from Norway was published in the journal Science & Medicine.  It's important to note that the study did not specifically evaluate the immune response of parents vs. non-parents.  Rather, this particular research was aimed at understanding the relationship between parenthood and overall health.  The investigators looked into detailed medical records of more than 1.5 million men and women born between 1935 and 1968, and found that there was a strong negative correlation between being a parent and the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, becoming an alcoholic, and even dying in a car crash.  The study found that the people most at risk of dying from any of these causes were those who were childless.  The researchers theorized that this may be because the individuals felt less of a need to take care of their health.  This seems to make sense to me! Just as one example:  when I went on downhill ski trips before having kids (and, for that matter, before having a business...which is a lot like having a child, in terms of responsibility), I would ski much more recklessly than I do now.  Looking back at some of the predicaments I put myself in on the side of a mountain, I am honestly surprised that I never had a bad injury when skiing.  Edwin and Estelle (and Giebler Chiropractic) have definitely taken me off a lot of "Black Diamond" routes, and put me back on "Blue Squares."

In terms of other evidence, the strongest suggestions that having children might strengthen their parents' immune system come from related studies that have consistently shown that having pets in the home strengthens and builds the children's immune systems and helps to keep them healthy.  For example, a 2012 study from the journal Pediatrics showed that children who lived with dogs and cats during the first year of life tended to be significantly healthier than those who did not.  The researchers theorized that the pets exposed children to a wide variety of "good germs," some of which are beneficial for developing immunity to the "bad germs."  We may be able to infer that parents might also benefit from being exposed to a variety of germs, both from the pets and from their own children, as children pick up germs at school and bring them home.

There is certainly anecdotal evidence of the latter to be found in the "common wisdom" imparted to people becoming new kindergarten and elementary school teachers.  It has occasionally been suggested that new teachers, when planning personal finances for their first year of teaching, plan on being out sick more than the allotted number of "sick days," and thus not being paid for them.  Young teachers, who are often used to being remarkably healthy, should consider this good advice, as they will be exposed to multiple times more germs from those kids sitting in their classrooms.

However, exposure to a wide variety of germs transmitted by the kids boosts immune system function over time, and will improve the ability to be exposed to them in the future without getting sick!  We can possibly infer that the same thing happens with small children in the home--they pick up germs at school and bring them home where the parents are exposed to them.  This exposure then builds immunity over time rather than diminishing it.  Early natural exposure to germs and bugs allows for the body to develop defenses against illness at multiple "levels" throughout the immune system, from non-specific immune response to detailed bacteria-specific antibodies, and creates a stronger defense to future exposures.

Related studies have indicated that many people feel happier when they have kids.  If this is actually true, then their positive mental state can also certainly contribute to staying healthy.  Besides, as all parents know, there are so many other joys associated with having kids, that even if there aren't a huge number of studies proving that they keep parents healthier, they'll feel healthier.  Again, I can attest to that.  There's nothing better than a big hug from my two little kids when I get home.  I live for those moments!