Serendipitous Connections.

Among the maladies that motivates folks to come visit me in the clinic, is that their infant has diaper rash, also known as diaper dermatitis. Should this persist past, say, 3-5 days, there is an increased likelihood of Candida (you may recognize it as yeast) joining in to add to the discomfort. Yeast (Candida) is commonly found in stool, and, well, with infants, stool in the diaper is a common occurrence. If there is diaper rash, susceptibility to candida climbs.

So, microorganisms really, really like a particular set of conditions in order to grow and proliferate. Generally, that includes warmth (like you might find beneath a diaper, for example), moisture (which just MIGHT be found, beneath a well fitted, and perhaps, oh, gosh, let’s spitball here: wet! diaper) as well as darkness, so that those pesky UV rays do not disturb the microorganism’s DNA, as well as that nasty old sunlight not drying out the area of operations.

This being The Un-Named Fly Over State, and deer hunting being nigh unto the State Religion, once you get into the outer ring of Big City Suburbs, most folks recognize the existence of a program known as Quality Deer Management (QDM). The premise is that, should the landowner provide for high quality food (acorns, or suchlike), access to water (ponds do nicely for this), shelter (like deer tend to find in a woodlot), AND you avoid hunting young bucks, then you tend to hunt, and harvest, larger, healthier bucks in later years simply because you provided an environment conducive to such bucks reaching maturity, in an environment providing them with their needs.

Therefore, when I suggest that parents who attempt to provide an environment that DOES NOT provide these elements to the germs in their child’s diaper, the child is likely to have fewer episodes of diaper rash, of shorter duration, and less likely to require my attention. That means, naked babies (generally in the kitchen, on the linoleum), kept meticulously clean using bland soaps and tepid water, with their (the babies) bottoms protected from the irritant effects of urine and stool by such means as petroleum jelly. That means, to those steeped in such things (like your Mark 1, Mod Ø deer hunter), that concerned parents do THE OPPOSITE of what QDM practitioners do for deer. Take you kid’s germs, and dry ’em out, blast them with sunlight, cool them out, and let Nature, and your child’s immune system, take care of business.

Serendipitous connections.

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