E. Coli Infections Detection and Prevention Information

Part 1 by Laurie Girand

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Introduction

E. Coli is one of many diarrheal illnesses a child can contract; yet, its severity warrants special attention. As a parent, you may be interested in:

• how to help prevent E. Coli infections in your children
• what to do if you think your child has E. Coli
• how parents can help prevent and halt E. Coli epidemics

Possible Ways To Prevent E. Coli Infection In Young Children:

1. Give your child only pasteurized or sterilized fluids. In a grocery store, pasteurized juices can be found in the unrefrigerated sections at a grocery store, in a bottle, can or "box." Pasteurized juices or milk found in the refrigerated section should be labeled as such. Interestingly, only recently was milk required to be pasteurized throughout the U.S.
   
   
2. Cook all beef products that your children eat until they are gray.
   
   
3. Educate yourself about the sources of your fresh foods and how they can become contaminated on their way to your child.
   
   
4. Wash all fresh fruit and vegetables with and without inedible skins. Some foods with skins, such as melons, grow on the ground and can be contaminated with unsterilized manure. "According to Dean Cliver, a professor of food safety at the University of California at Davis, no research has been done to answer this question. If you have reason to be suspicious, he says, you should wash your fruit and vegetables with a brush and water mixed with a capful of bleach per gallon... Cliver says it's hoped that bleach is enough." (Source: San Jose Mercury News 11/20/96")
   
   
5. Don't let your children swim, walk or otherwise come into contact with any natural bodies of fresh water. If they do, verify that the water has been checked and ok'd by a health department.
   
   
6. Insist on handwashing and avoidance of oral-fecal contact with other children, especially in a daycare setting.
   
   
7. Don't eat out, or if you do, be certain about the sanitary practices of the restaurant.
   
   
8. Feed your children only foods that have been cooked thoroughly.

If this sounds hard to do, it is. Until something is done about contamination of the food supply, you simply cannot be certain that this virulent bacteria will not affect your child.

Continue on to Part 2