PSA practice good hand washing!

amother

DarkKhaki

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 8:42 am

Handwashing makes sense as a preventative measure in some cases, like when you come home from a store or used a public restroom. Or a doctor coming out of a room with a sick patient.

It doesn't make sense if you're a teacher in a classroom with sick kids, or sharing a house with sick kids.

OddoneOut1 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 8:53 am

amother Aster wrote:

Dr. Ignatz Semmelweis' discovery that doctors handwashing or not was the #1 factor in women childbirth mortality rates was groundbreaking back in his day. It's really a fascinating piece of history.

Historically doctors were going straight from internal exams of one woman and CADAVERS to then insert their fingers internally into the next woman...yes, childbed fever was the #1 killer, but the germs were next level. They did not wash their hands at all between patients/dead people.
The evolution of obstetrics and gynecology is definitely disturbing...

Handwashing is important, but we can't draw conclusions for everyday viruses from the rampant spread of infection and bacteria that existed during that time period.

amother

↑ Aster

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 8:56 am

OddoneOut1 wrote:

Serious bacteria is still around. People die from things in 3rd world countries that we don't even worry about. Because we take for granted certain accepted hygiene practices that are standard in most places. Handwashing and clean water availability is definitely up there, along with food refrigeration.

amother

Khaki

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:06 am

amother Aster wrote:

Sure it does. Doctors were infecting the women with bacteria when they assisted them during birth because they were transmitting bacteria from other patients that were directly on their hands. In those days, they'd just wipe off any obvious blood or gook on their doctors coats, they wouldn't wash it off, and certainly no washing of microscopic unseen germs on their hands, before handling patients. When he instituted a month or two of handwashing with a basic soap the childbirth mortality rates in his hospital went down to almost none. When they stopped the requirement (because the other doctors were annoyed about it) it rebounded back to the previous rates. The women would get what they called childbed fever, have high temperatures, and die within a couple of days immediately post birth.

It’s amazing how what is today common knowledge, was once not known. And it’s fairly recent too. How smart do you reckon we’ll be in another 200 years?

amother

↑ Rainbow

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:07 am

amother Poinsettia wrote:

I've never heard of anyone doing this. If your hands are clean, there's nothing problematic with more than one person using a hand towel. If the towel is sitting wet for a long time it will start to breed germs but for one seuda, not an issue. In the bathroom, change hand towels on a regular basis but doesn't have to be after a single use.

You’ve never heard of anyone giving clean hand towels to others? That’s gross sorry. You don’t know if the person using the towel used soap on their hands or just rinsed
Them

miami85 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:12 am

hand washing is only 1 tactic in the arsenal of good health and hygiene.

So are using tissues, coughing into elbows, getting adequate rest, healthy food, vitamins for immunity.

Hand washing minimizes the germs that get to the nasal and oral cavities where viruses love to live and thrive. However, the human immune system thrives on EXPOSURE to germs (unless immunocompromised), because exposure allows to build antibodies.

amother

↑ Poinsettia

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:16 am

amother Rainbow wrote:

You’ve never heard of anyone giving clean hand towels to others? That’s gross sorry. You don’t know if the person using the towel used soap on their hands or just rinsed
Them

I do know that the members of my house use soap when washing, so it would be silly to give everyone a fresh towel every time.
Regarding guests, if they're not machpid on using soap I'm guessing they won't want an individual towel in the guest bathroom either.

When washing for a seudah, unless you are washing your hands with soap after you use the shared wash cup, your hands are just as dirty or clean as everyone elses. So why would we need separate towels there? We start with a fresh towel and use it for the meal.

↑ miami85 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:16 am

Getting sick, especially children, is never fun or convenient, however I think one thing we all learned from the past 5 years is that "you can run, but you can't hide" from viruses. And in many cases, younger kids fare better from viruses that adults and by getting viral exposure as children spares you as an adult.

↑ Bnei Berak 10 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:50 am

OddoneOut1 wrote:

Thank you for posting this!!!

Many women died until Dr Semelweiss came around.
Soap and water has never killed anyone but many have died because the lack of soap and water.

↑ Bnei Berak 10 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:52 am

amother DarkKhaki wrote:

It does make sense. You touch your face and you might put your finger in your mouth (lack of a napkin) or something else.

↑ Bnei Berak 10

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 9:56 am

amother Peach wrote:

I’m not great with enforcing washing, kids come home before me, B”H kids have been healthy still through this season so far. I don’t think it’s correlated

Science has proven hand washing IS correlated and you can enforce it once you are at home.

amother

↑ Catmint ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 10:01 am

amother Poinsettia wrote:

I'm not sure how that's even relevant to the conversation. There are so many things affecting the mortality rates of women in childbirth that have nothing to donwith germ transmission. This has zero to do with how hand washing affects the transmission of viruses and bacteria.

You are *gravely* mistaken it almost laughable.

amother

↑ Catmint

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 10:36 am

miami85 wrote:

Are you sure? There are so many viruses (millions!) so it's not you get your kids sick once they are young and forever after they will be immune. Doesn't work that way.

jj1236

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 10:56 am

I’m confused. All the OP said was to wash your hands to help prevent sickness. Why is this something to fight about. She didn’t say if you wash your hands you’ll never get sick. She said just wash your hands to help prevent. How is this even a debate…

↑ miami85 ↓

Mon, Jan 06 2025, 11:49 am

amother Catmint wrote:

Are you sure? There are so many viruses (millions!) so it's not you get your kids sick once they are young and forever after they will be immune. Doesn't work that way.

However, like you yourself just said that "there are millions of viruses"--and unless immunocompromised most people get sick a few times a year--and mostly it's "colds" or that family of viruses (one of which are coronaviruses) which are constantly mutating and cause mild illness in most healthy individuals. Covid-19 was unusual because of the severe presentation in some otherwise seemingly healthy individuals.

This is why you commonly have 1-2 people sick in a family at a time, sometimes you get a virus that runs through the whole family, but relative to the germs you are exposed to, your immune system does an amazing job.

amother

Tanzanite

Yesterday at 3:00 am

if you want your kids (and you!) to see the importance of washing your hands, highly highly recommend the potato jar experiment.

slice a potato in two. when your kids have particularly dirty hands, like when they come home straight from school, have them wipe their unwashed hands on one potato half. then they should wash their hands and wipe their washed hands on the other. put the potatoes in a jar or a bag.

wait a few days. you'll see the 'dirty' potato sprouts all sorts of nasty stuff. the clean generally won't.

it's very eye-opening.

↑ OddoneOut1

Yesterday at 3:08 am

amother Poinsettia wrote:

During the 1800's the rate of women dying post childbirth was 10-30%. That is sky high compared to today and is directly caused by the spread of infection that swept through when women moved from home to the hospital (shared beds, doctors with unwashed hands...etc)

Currently, maternal mortality in the US is about 30 out of 100,000 women. Many other factors contributed to lowering maternal mortality- but infection is a BIGGIE.

This is all off topic.
I agree with the OP that handwashing is important! I usually don't think much about those hidden pesky bacteria but I am going to start enforcing some handwashing!! Will definitely try the potato experiment- really cool

ora_43 ↓

Yesterday at 5:16 am

jj1236 wrote:

It's weird how many people reject policies that only sometimes work, or reduce a problem without solving it completely. I feel like we've been seeing this attitude around sickness for years, but now it's everywhere, about everything.

amother

↑ Peach

Yesterday at 5:18 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

Science has proven hand washing IS correlated and you can enforce it once you are at home.

Ok but the exposure to germs has been going on all day. Yes I tell my kids to wash when I’m home but there’s more to it than just handwashing

↑ ora_43

Yesterday at 5:18 am

miami85 wrote:

You can't hide from viruses (eta: and trying to avoid them completely is terrible for the immune system, as some have said). But when you make it harder for them to get you, you generally end up with tamer viruses.