For many years, attempts have been made to control the hygiene and health of babies by boiling or sterilizing pacifiers, teats and bottles. The control reached such magnitude, a few decades ago, that mothers who breastfed their babies had their breasts covered with sterile gauze and urged them to have extraordinary hygiene with them to prevent them from catching oral infections.
With the passage of time the hygiene of the breasts has been reduced to “take a daily shower”, without the need to take more precautions. With regard to the mentioned teats, pacifiers and bottles, however, you hear a little of everything and you doubt enough about the need or not to do so. Today we are going to talk about it: sterilize baby items, yes or no?
Sterilize everything?
The fever for creating a sterile world for our children can become such that there are parents who end up obsessing to eliminate all the germs they have had and for having the environment of babies. I don't know what a couple's path is to get to such an obsession, but perhaps some of those commercial calls from companies that know you have had a baby have something to do with conversations in which they present you with an apocalyptic world, which is curiously the one where you live, because the mattresses, sheets, carpets and toys contain millions of mites that jump your baby and because the germs surround your body looking for a weak point to enter, all because of not having sterilized your clothes , the sheets or the rest of the elements that come into contact with the baby.
In this way, mothers appear who wash everything at maximum temperature and do long washes, sterilizing baby toys, pacifiers and bottles (if you use them), teethers and ultimately everything of the child.
The reality is that for parents this is a living. First, because being all day controlling what touches the baby is an immense job, second, because cleaning and sterilizing is an extra and third job, because if necessary it would be a job done with desire, but neither is necessary nor is, in fact, too recommendable, as we explained a few days ago when we commented that excessive hygiene can be harmful for children.
Sterilize bottles, teats and pacifiers?
Taking our head off the idea of trying to create a sterile bubble around our son, we will go to the most common, to the most usual, which is the sterilization of bottles, pacifiers and teats.
The reality is that, although it has been done for many years and nothing has happened, because it is not bad to sterilize the things that come in contact with the baby, it is not necessary to do it if you have adequate hygiene, and common sense tells us the same if we consider that mothers do not have to sterilize breasts (on the other hand, to see how they were going to do it).
The first time we are going to use any of these gadgets that will come in contact with the baby it is advisable to sterilize, boil or wash it in the dishwasher. The result will not be the same because the first method ends all germs, the second also, but the third does not. A dishwasher will hardly reach a temperature of 90 ° C, which is said to be ideal for ending most of the microorganisms (mine reaches a maximum of 65 ° C), but it is considered that without becoming the same it is sufficient.
From that moment, focusing for example on pacifiers, it is recommended do it again often to avoid infections. Often it would be, for example, once a day, having some spare pacifier in case the floor falls and using soap and water the rest of the time (going back to the simil of mom's breasts, it is obvious that you have to have more hygiene because a mother’s tits don't spend the day between her son’s mouth and the floor).
If we talk about bottles and teats the recommendation is the same, with the proviso that you have to wash them well after each use. There are parents who sterilize the bottles after use and, as we have said before, it is not bad. However, it is also not bad to give them a good scrub with soap and water taking into account three important precautions: that there is no milk left anywhere in the bottle, that everything is very well clarified so that there is no soap left and air dry and not with a cloth.
Kitchen rags are authentic stores of microorganisms potentially dangerous to the baby. If we scrub all the pots well and then put in the cloth to dry them we will be undoing the job well done, filling everything, more than likely, with undesirable bugs.
Sterilize? Look at the nails, hands and general appearance
I tell you as an anecdote a response that a nursing teacher gave us when talking about the hygiene of the baby's utensils now about five years ago (when I studied in depth about pediatrics). To the question of whether it was necessary to sterilize bottles, teats and pacifiers, he answered "everything depends on the nails, hands and general appearance of the mother and father."
According to her we should look at the general hygiene of the parents. If they were clean we could deduce that they also had a minimally clean kitchen and that they would be careful with the baby's things, being able to answer that it was not necessary, it was enough to scrub them well and let them dry in the open air.
If instead we saw that hygiene was lacking we could deduce that the house and kitchen would not be too clean and then we should answer that yes, the ideal thing would be to sterilize the baby's things.
And the dishwasher for the bottles?
As it usually happens, seeing that some parents sterilize the bottles and that others can simply wash them with soap and water, there is an average term that I would recommend to those parents who are not going to buy a sterilizer: the dishwasher (I have never used it because my children have not taken a bottle, but having done so seems more reliable than washing it by hand).
Just as it is enough for pacifiers, the dishwasher is also enough to wash bottles and teats. Personally I recommend a rinse before putting things in the tray because sometimes there is some restyle if it is very full and the water does not arrive well.
Obviously, there is also, as with pacifiers, the option to boil things. It is a good option, of course, but we must take into account what has been said before: everything must air dry, nothing to put rags or hand to dry anything.
How long should we have these precautions?
Both parents who sterilize and parents who boil and those who use dishwashers wonder: even when?
Well, pulling common sense, until you see that your child already takes everything in his mouth. This usually happens around four or five months, which is when you find that your child is sucking me that I know what toy he has found go to know where or that sucks a thing that has stolen from your hand. From that moment on, I would relax a bit (if I am sterilizing) and I would move on to options such as the dishwasher or the soapy water.
Most books, despite the comments, usually recommend waiting a little longer, six months ago, age at which the risk of infection is lower because babies are already older and age when they start eating other things that are obviously not sterilized (vegetables, meat, cereals, cookies, fruit, etc.).
Photos | bradley_newman, osde8info, Qole Pejorian
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