The Dangers of Hand Sanitizers

Who would have thought that hand sanitizer could be dangerous? Hand sanitizer is used to kill germs on your hands. Many teachers and other people who work with small children have hand sanitizers readily available so they can help prevent the spread of germs that can make people sick. Sanitizing hands is a good way to prevent the spread of germs that can cause sickness. Now we find out that if you ingest hand sanitizer it can make you ill.

Hand sanitizers are now considered dangerous for small children. Children are naturally curious creatures. Children learn by touching, feeling, smelling and yes even tasting the world around them. We all learn by the things that surround us. When small children use hand sanitizers they want to taste the hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizers come in a variety of scents so they seem appealing to taste. It only takes a small amount of hand sanitizer to poison a small child. Hand sanitizer has high amounts of alcohol in it.

Children like to imitate the adults in their lives. They might see an adult take medication from a bottle. Or they may witness an adult drinking a light colored liquid that looks appealing to the child. Children are not experienced enough to know that some pretty liquids may be harmful to them. So when they see the pretty, light colored liquid of hand sanitizer they try tasting it thinking it will do them no harm.

A child who has had an overdose of hand sanitizer has symptoms like a drunken person. The child becomes lethargic and incoherent. Speech can become slurred and their balance will not be very good. If they get a big dose of hand sanitizer they can die.

Many homes have hand sanitizer in them. Many people think that hand sanitizer is safe. It is now being advised that homes that have small children should not have hand sanitizer in them. A child can easily get a hold of hand sanitizer and ingest some before anyone suspects it.

If you have small children or you work with small children you should not have hand sanitizer easily available. Maybe you may want to consider not having hand sanitizer at all. Maybe dealing with a few germs is better then making a child sick from hand sanitizer.

If you would like to know more about the effects of hand sanitizer on children you can look on the web at http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/sanitizer.asp.