Sick Family & What to Expect: Guide to a Healthy Home - Sponsored Review

I forgot to tell you about this, but most everyone in the family got sick during our stay at my in-laws'. My MIL was recovering from a cold when we got there and my boys were coughing a bit. I guess the close proximity motivated the transmission of germs. The first one to get a little sick (runny nose) was Linton. Then Kelvin woke up one night with an earache and had a low-grade fever for a while. Next my mother-in-law started getting sick again quickly followed by my two nephews who had a terrible cough and some fever. When we left, MIL was miserable and yesterday my husband started getting sick (I also heard from MIL that BIL is sick too). K had to miss work today because he was feeling very sick, feverish, coughing, and weak -- classic flu symptoms. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get sick too. I have only a cough and my chest was a bit congested some days ago which probably happened because I ate quite a bit of dairy food and my allergies always act up when I do so. Anyway, it's very tough to avoid catching colds and flu at this time of the year and I'm just bracing myself and hoping for the best.

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For a while now I've been receiving cool products from Mom Central Consulting to review in the blog, but the past six months have been so chaotic that I've been a bit delayed in posting any reviews, so, without further ado, here's the first one (more will follow), which has a lot to do with the scenario that I just described with our family (that's why it was scheduled for this time of the year).

Heidi Murkoff, the co-author of this best-seller and others in the series, was sponsored by this company to write the free brochure What to Expect: Guide to a Healthy Home. It is short, but pretty comprehensive. In the first part Murkoff addresses the main areas of the house and how to keep them clean. I particularly liked the boxes about toys and food which fall on the floor and the lists of objects that should and should not be shared. There's also a section about food safety, including bottles, breastmilk, and formula. The second part is about healthy habits in the home and "out and about," including a section on child care centers. I think this guide is quite useful, particularly to people/families who may not be familiar with all these concepts (I think this is the primary aim of Murkoff's non-profit foundation). The guide is has accessible, friendly language, but covers the most important aspects of the links between good hygiene and health.

The only thing I missed in this guide is that I think it would be useful to mention that anti-bacterial soaps aren't very helpful since they promote the development of strains of bacteria that become resistant to treatment. It's important (in my opinion) to emphasize that using plain soap and/or alcohol based hand cleaners (which are both mentioned in the guide) is better than using anti-bacterial soap.

The guide can be downloaded here or it can be mailed to you or your friends for free as well.
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Disclosure: This review was sponsored by Mom Central and I will receive an Amazon gift certificate as compensation.