Young kids with colds, turn out healthier

Wednesday, February 20th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

If your kids are in day care they may be just getting over another cold. There always seems to be something going around. A new study suggests, all those colds in day care, make for healthier kids later on.

We sent News on Six's Rick Wells out to find out if that could possibly be true. The four and five year olds at Trinity Day School are good at sharing. They're sharing toys, sharing space and probably sharing the latest cold. Kids this age always seem to have something like that to share.

A new study suggests all the colds they pass around are making them healthier. The study says, "Kids in day care at age two have twice as many colds as kids the same age who are cared for at home. But, by the time those day care kids reach age six they have only a third the colds of the home care kids." The study followed nearly one thousand kids, and Dr Pat Daley St. John Medical Center Pediatrician says they may be on to something. "I think we need to know that when they're in day care they're gonna get sick more often, they're gonna have more colds more pneumonias and things like that. Does this immunity help them as they get older, yeah I think it does."

"They definitely build up and immunity." Day School Director Ginger Robertson says there are other contributing factors to fewer cold in older kids. They wash their hands more, they are outside more and fewer of these things wind up their mouths.

Janet Nobles who teaches them says you just have to count heads when a virus is going around. "Where the younger rooms will have half the class out we will have maybe one or two." So I guess that centuries old saying is true. What doesn't kill me will make me stronger, true even for these little kids.

The study and the findings are very technical, but if you're interested and would like to read the entire thing, you can visit Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.