Food Safety For YOU! 2007 Edition

If you're a parent, sibling, or babysitter, it's important to practice food safety. Infants and young children are especially vulnerable to foodborne illness because their immune systems are not fully developed. Also, their stomachs produce less acid, which makes it easier for harmful microorganisms to get through their digestive system and invade their bodies.

Wash Up

• If you don't wash your hands, your actions could result in infant diarrhea! Your hands can pick up bacteria from the following things and spread bacteria to the baby: diapers; raw meat, poultry, eggs, and seafood; animals -- such as dogs, cats, turtles, snakes, and birds; soil.

  Wash your hands with hot, soapy water after changing a diaper or after any activity in which your hands could have picked up germs. You don't want to transmit those germs to an infant or a child. Frequently wash children's hands with warm (not hot) soapy water.

• Wash eating areas with hot, soapy water.

• Use detergent and hot water to wash and rinse all utensils (including the can opener) that come in contact with a baby's foods.

• Clean bottles after every use. Harmful bacteria can infect an infant during the next feeding if the bottle is not washed properly.

• You can reuse the nipples of disposable bottles, but be aware that bacteria from the formula could be lurking and growing in the nipples. Thoroughly clean the nipples after each use.

Feeling Under the Weather?

• If you're sick, pass up babysitting for a young child until you're feeling better, so you don't expose the child to illness. In addition, don't be involved in any food preparation that may expose the child to harmful bacteria.

Baby's Food

• Fill a bottle with just enough milk for one serving. Harmful bacteria from a baby's mouth can be introduced into food or bottles where it can grow and multiply even after refrigerating and reheating. So, if the baby doesn't finish the bottle, throw away any leftovers.

• Milk, formula, or food left out at room temperature or without a cold pack for more than 2 hours should not be used.

• Follow the manufacturer's recommendations for preparing bottles before filling them with formula or milk. Observe the "Use By" dates on formula cans.

• Do not feed a baby directly from a jar of baby food and put it back in the refrigerator again. Saliva on the spoon or in the jar can contaminate the remaining food. Instead, put just enough food on a dish for one serving using a clean spoon before feeding the baby.

• If using commercial baby foods, check each new jar to see if the safety button on the lid is down. If the jar lid doesn't "pop" when opened, do not use. Discard jars with chipped glass or rusty lids.

  

• Do not feed a baby honey or syrup -- at least for the first 12 months. Honey and syrups can contain spores of Clostridium botulinum. The immune systems of adults and older children can prevent the spores from growing once ingested. However, in an infant, these spores can grow and cause infant botulism.

Food Safety A to Z Reference Guide

Hypertext updated by dms/dav 2008-JUL-01