It is a well-known fact that kids like animals, even though at the beginning they don’t really know how to handle them. Animals are also known to be kind with kids and even protective at the beginning. So this special relationship has been researched many times and the scientists seem to have found some kind of advantage of having a pet at a fragile age.
Scientifically it is said that being exposed at an early age to pets could result in having a lower total lgE level but this isn’t strongly associated with a decrease in the appearance of common allergies at the age of 18.
All this means that in case the child has a pet in his or her home in the first year of life, it might result that he or she won’t have common allergies later in life.
There are a lot of parents who worry that the presence of animals in the house at an early age could make the children develop allergies for them.
The studies that have been conducted seem not to agree with this fear.
On the contrary, according to the study, those children that had cats or dogs at an early age have 50% less chance of developing a significant amount of antibodies to cat or dog allergens that can lead to an allergic sensitization.
The same study has revealed that the experiences of the first year of life can be associated with the health status of the later life. Also parents don’t have to fear that if the babies get in contact with animals in the first year, they will develop animal allergies in their life.
It is said that being exposed to getting in contact with animals isn’t as important in the later life than in the first year. Nonetheless we have to take into consideration that this study doesn’t show a cause and effect relationship between being exposed to pets and having or not having allergies. The researchers have only found an association between the two.
The researchers aren’t saying that every person should go and get a pet in order to avoid getting allergies. There is need for even more research, but the researchers are optimistic about these kinds of studies.
We have to note that there have been numerous different studies performed on this matter lately, and while some of them agree with the findings of this study, some of them have shown that being exposed to animals at a fragile age has a negative effect on children.
Another interesting thing that has been found is that the children born by Caesarian section had more to benefit from having a pet around. These children had only one-third chances of developing dog allergies and only 70% of the chance to develop cat allergies. This is possible because traveling through the birth canal could expose children to more bacteria.
No matter what the findings say, it is not worth to have a pet around just for the allergy concerns, because there is no proof. However if you want to grow a pet loving child you can expose him or her to pets from a fragile age. If it is not proved to be an allergy bulletproof action, it can surely make a difference in the psychological development of your little one.
