Wash Your Hands Jeffrey......Why, When and With What??

We’ve all been told that one of the best ways to prevent the spread of infection is to wash our hands. Doctors in the 19th century learned this the hard way, going from autopsies to delivering babies without washing. Women who had their babies in hospitals were more likely to die and so it wasn’t a popular option at the time.

More recently, in a year-long study in hospital intensive care units in the UK, it was found that,

“Regular handwashing by hospital staff and visitors did more to prevent the spread of the MRSA superbug than isolating infected patients.”

MRSA (Multiresistant Staph Aureus) is a nasty bacterial infection which is resistant to antibiotic treatment, common in many hospitals and a result of overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial cleaning products.

So, if you want to be less susceptible to colds, flu, tummy bugs and MRSA, wash your hands regularly.

WHEN? Always wash your hands:

After using the toilet or changing a baby’s nappy
After handling animals or their waste
Before and after preparing food, especially raw meat, poultry or fish • Before eating • After blowing your nose
After coughing or sneezing into your hands
Before and after touching a sick or injured person
After emptying the rubbish
Before handling a newborn baby

WHAT WITH?

Washing with soap and water doesn’t actually kill germs, it just makes the skin slippery so that t he germs slide off. Washing with water will remove some germs but soap and water together will remove more. Washing with antibacterial products does kill bacteria, the good ones as well as the harmful ones, but within 90 minutes, they’re back again.

The problem is that the harmful bugs develop resistance, especially in hospitals, where there are more of them around, more surfaces treated with antibacterial products and more people taking antibiotics. In 2000 the American Medical Association admitted that using antibacterial soaps was no more effective than using regular soap – not that this stopped people using them.

Chemical “Hand Cleansers” are not only completely unnecessary but they are often highly perfumed, artificially coloured and unfriendly to our waterways and environment. So please don’t use them.

Liquid Soap or Hard Soap?

Last year, Australian scientists tested the effects of personal cleaning products, including shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, liquid soaps and hard soap on greywater and soil. They found that hard soaps were high in sodium and produced grey water with a high pH, which could damage plants and soil over time. Liquid cleansers and bodywashes were more likely to have low sodium levels and would be less damaging to plants and soils.