Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions.

To leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our first caller.

Hey Dr. Mona, this is Jackie. I have a question about building a child's immunity,

especially with COVID and everything. I have a sister who swears that, you know,

as soon as someone else is sick to expose your child to that sickness or illness,

if it's a cold, it's great to build your immunity. I don't know if I agree and I don't know where

that stands scientifically or medically. Can a child really build immunity from getting viruses

and cold versus just bacteria? I get, you know, bacteria playing the mud, that stuff is good,

which I do, but I'm not sure if I should purposely expose my kid to someone who's sick.

How do you feel about that and how does one build immunity? Thanks.

Hi Jackie, thank you so much for this question. It's a really good one and one that I often get asked.

So your sister is somewhat right that exposure to regular everyday germs, including childhood

viruses, can help build immunity. And I want to clarify what I mean by that. Build immunity meaning

the more we get exposed to a virus, the less likely we're going to have a big response to it.

I'm going to use RSV as an example. RSV is a very common childhood virus. As adults,

we have been exposed to RSV many times in our childhood as we were growing up even now.

So if we get RSV, we might not get the big response that a young child would, right?

Also understand that children who get the same viruses we do can also have a different response

because their immune system is different, but also their anatomy is different. So as an adult,

if we get RSV, it's not that big of a deal, but a child can get it and they can get really bad

congestion. It can affect the lungs. So there is a difference in understanding that yes,

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