Cleaning With Bleach Can Raise Infection Risks Among Children

The study, published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine, examined the effects of exposure to bleach in the residence among young children from schools in Finland, Spain and the Netherlands.

"The high frequency of use of disinfecting cleaning products - caused by 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 wrote in the study.

For the new study, the researchers examined the impact of bleach use in the properties of 9,102 kids aged six-12 attending 19 schools in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 18 schools in Barcelona, Spain, and 17 schools situated in Eastern and Central Finland.

The parents of the children in the study were asked questions about how often in the past year their children had several infections, including the flu, tonsillitis, sinusitis, bronchitis, otitis and pneumonia. Parents also reported whether they had mold in their home, and whether they used bleach to clean at least once a week, the researchers said.

"Passive exposure to cleaning bleach in the home may have adverse effects on school-age children's health by increasing the risk of respiratory and other infections," the authors write. "The high frequency of use of disinfecting irritant cleaning products may be of public health concern, also when exposure occurs during childhood."

The authors said their findings were in line with the increased risk of recurrent bronchitis in school-age children reported in a Belgian cross-sectional study.

"Domestic cleaning involves exposure to a large variety of irritants and sensitising chemicals that are used following certain cleaning patterns," the study said.

"Unfortunately, we did not have information on the use of other cleaning products and we cannot exclude the possibility that the observed results are due to the use of other irritants or to their combinations."