The synthetic rubber ducky you bring into your child ’s bath is n’t as innocent as its smile boldness intimate . newfangled findingspublishedinnpjBiofilms and Microbiomesshows that bath toy made from pliant plastic materials can pull in and spread harmful microbes during bath time .
Medical Xpressreports that for the report , researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology EAWAG , the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School , and the University of Illinois looked at two group of toys : old tub toy collect from real homes , and new toy they exposed to clean water and bathtub piddle over the course of several weeks . What researchers found , after foreshorten the toys open , was n’t pretty . " All bath toys analyzed in this report had dense and slimy biofilms on the inside airfoil , " the written report read . The old toy also contained morose plot of ground suggesting molding growth , while the biofilms in the newer toys were transparent .
Potentially pathogenic bacteria , includingLegionella(the crusade of Legionnaires ' disease ) andPseudomonas aeruginosa(associated with hospital - acquired infections ) , were found in 80 pct of all the toy dog contemplate . Fungi were also abundant : Fungal growth was detected in well-nigh 60 percentage of the house tub toy and in all of the newer ones tested in marked-up water .
When we take a bath , our bodies leach trace amounts of urine , lather , andfecal matterinto the water . force a tub toy like a rubber duck’s egg causes it to soak up up that warm liquidness and the gunk it contains . The DoI of this toy is the ideal place for kingdom Fungi and bacteria to flourish : The whippy polymer walls release constitutional carbon paper compounds which prey the Modern microbe populations . And when a kid constrict a bath toy that ’s full of piddle , hopefully away from their face , all that bacteria comes squirting out and into the water system they ’re bathing in .
If you want to make bath time a little cleaner , one answer is replace your traditional rubber bath toy dog with alternative ones that are n’t squeezable bacteria attractor . alas , that likely means pull away your rubber ducky .
[ h / tMedical Xpress ]
