Babies healthier in homes with a dog or cat

Household pets may boost body's defense systems.

July 9, 2012 at 8:34PM
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Fido and Spot could be helping parents raise healthier children.

A new study finds that children who lived with dogs or cats during their first year of life got sick less often than kids from pet-free zones. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, provides fresh evidence for the counterintuitive notion that an overly clean environment may not be ideal for babies.

Sharing a home with a pet may be an early form of cross-training for the body's defense systems. Previous research has shown that owning a cat or dog was associated with less risk of gastroenteritis in young children.

Studies also suggest that the dirt — and microbes — brought indoors by pets could bolster the communities of helpful bacteria, yeast and other microscopic creatures that live in a developing child's body.

Read more from Los Angeles Times.

about the writer

about the writer

Colleen Stoxen

Deputy Managing Editor for News Operations

Colleen Stoxen oversees hiring, intern programs, newsroom finances, news production and union relations. She has been with the Minnesota Star Tribune since 1987, after working as a copy editor and reporter at newspapers in California, Indiana and North Dakota.

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