Curious little hands seem to investigate everything. From crawling on the floor and playing in sandboxes to playing with shared toys at school and touching public doorknobs, those little hands and fingers come into contact with a wide variety of surfaces—very few of which have been disinfected. Inevitably, those fingers make their way to the mouth, nose, or eyes and provide germs with a convenient means of transportation to an environment where they can reproduce and cause illness. The best way to help reduce the chances of your child picking up some of these stray germs is to teach them sound hygiene practices such as thorough hand washing.

According to the Hygiene Council, your hands are one of the leading causes of cross contamination and cross infection in the home. For that reason, the Hygiene Council recommends that hands should be washed:

Before
• Eating or before feeding children
• Handling or applying contact lenses
• Giving medication or providing first aid

After
• Using the toilet or changing a diaper
• Coming into contact with blood or bodily fluids
• Sneezing, coughing, or blowing or scratching the nose
• Coming into contact with a potentially contaminated site
• Handling pets and/or domestic animals

Before and after
• Handling raw food
• Contact with or tending to someone who is sick

And whenever
• Hands appear to be dirty

Although hand washing comes naturally for many, a Hygiene Council survey showed that only 3 out of 5 people (59%) claim that their children always wash their hands before eating. The Hygiene Council recommends a six-step process for thorough hand washing which includes:

1. Wet hands and apply soap. Rub palms together until the soap is bubbly.
2. Rub each palm over the back of the other hand.
3. Rub between your fingers on each hand.
4. Rub backs of fingers (interlocked)
5. Rub around each of your thumbs.
6. Rub both palms with fingertips then rinse and dry your hands.

After a thorough hand washing with soap, hands should be thoroughly dried on a clean, dry towel. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing hands with a soapy lather for at least 15 seconds while scrubbing between fingers, under fingernails, and around the tops and palms of hands. The CDC adds that hands should be dried with a clean, disposable (or single use) towel and that you should be careful to avoid touching the faucet handles or towel holder with clean hands (use a towel to act as a barrier between your hand and the handle when turning the faucet off). When hand washing with soap and water isn't possible, the Hygiene Council recommends using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Such products don't clean—they only sanitize. Hand sanitizers will kill germs on the hands, but not if the hands are visibly dirty.

Another unsuspected site for harboring household germs lies in your kitchen sink. Although you may replace it on a regular basis, rinse it thoroughly, and it looks clean, your kitchen sponge or dishcloth is a breeding ground for food borne pathogens, molds, and yeasts. And just think, each time you use your sponge to clean your dishes or wipe off a countertop you are basically spreading a "bacteria soup" across the surfaces. In a study conducted by the Hygiene Council, 75% of kitchen cloths and sponges failed the hygiene test and 25% of those tested appeared clean or new. Among Americans who claimed that they change their sponge or cloth once a week, 80% still held unsatisfactory or worse levels of bacteria.

If thorough rinsing isn't the answer, what is? The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service studied the best way to clean kitchen sponges. Researchers simulated dirty sponges by soaking them in a solution of ground beef and lab growth medium for 48 hours at room temperature—resulting in a high level of microbes. Each sponge was treated in one of five ways: soaked for three minutes in a 10% chlorine bleach solution, soaked in lemon juice and deionized water for one minute, heated in a microwave for one minute, placed in a dishwasher operating with a drying cycle, or left untreated. They found that between 37% and 87% of bacteria were killed on sponges by soaking them in chlorine bleach, lemon juice and deionized water—leaving enough bacteria to potentially cause disease. Microwaving sponges killed 99.99999% of the bacteria present on them and dishwashing, with a drying cycle, killed 99.9998% of bacteria. Sponges that were microwaved or run through a dishwasher were found to hold less that 1 percent of molds and yeasts (0.00001%) while soaking in bleach, lemon juice and deionized water allowed between 6.7% and 63% of molds and yeasts to survive.

You do your best to keep your family healthy. Make hand washing a habit with your family members, and make sure that sponge makes a regular visit to your microwave or dishwasher—you'll say goodbye to some unfriendly hidden germs!

Sources:
Hygiene Council—www.hygienecouncil.com
United States Department of Agriculture—www.ars.usda.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—www.cdc.gov

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