Children & Pet Allergies

Your bringing home a new baby, so what do you do with your pets? Turns out, that dog or cat might be one key to keeping your baby healthy.

What that pet might do is keep your baby from developing allergies, even later in life.

Researchers followed babies from back in the 1980s until they just recently turned 18. They looked at what types of pets they had in their homes back then, if any, and what kind of allergies they developed as young adults.

They found that children with a dog or cat were not at an increased risk of developing pet allergies. But the important time frame was that first year of life. Infants who had cats had a 50% less chance of developing allergies later on. Growing up with a dog, on the other hand, had the same affect on boys, but not on girls, a finding the researchers are still trying to figure out.

Part of the reason having a pet during the first year of your baby's life protects them from allergies, could be what some are calling the "hygiene hypothesis." In other words, dirt is good for children and getting exposed to pets and occasionally playing in the dirt can help build their immune systems. And since the immune system is like a muscle, the more of a workout it gets early in life the stronger it will be when these kids are grown up, then exposing them to everyday things and not getting to concerned about keeping them clean all the time might be one key to helping them fight off illnesses later in life.

In other words, it's OK to be a kid and get messy every now and then. But like our moms always said, "don't forget to wash up before dinner."