Could Exposure To Bleach In The Home Put Your Child At Risk Of Certain Infections?

New findings published in the journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine show that people who use bleach in their home to kill germs could actually be making their kids sick.

For the study, researchers looked at 9,000 children between 6 and 12 who attended 19 schools in Utrecht, The Netherlands. They also looked at children from 17 schools in Eastern and Central Finland and 18 schools in Barcelona, Spain. Over the span of 12 months, researchers asked parents to report on how often they used bleach in their homes as well as any reported cases of various illnesses, including the flu, sinusitis, tonsiillitis, otitis, bronchitis and/or pneumonia. 

The study results showed that parents who used bleach had a 20 percent higher risk of their child getting the flu. Their child/children were also at a 35 percent increased risk of getting recurrent tonsillitis. And for any parents who regularly used bleach, the risk was about 18 percent higher for children.

"The high frequency of use of disinfecting cleaning products, caused by the erroneous belief, reinforced by advertising, that our homes should be free of microbes, makes the modest effects reported in our study of public health concern," the researchers said, in a news release. 

While the findings were only observational and no complete conclusions can be drawn here, research can potentially backup previous findings regarding certain types of chemicals and respiratory issues. However, more research will be needed.