A new report from the American Academy of Pediatricians found that young children should not be allowed to have exotic animals as pets because they increase the risk of spreading dangerous diseases.
What’s more, exotic animals tend to be more prone to bite or scratch than traditional household pets such as dogs and cats.
Young children are at an increased risk of being affected by diseases because their immune systems are still under development.
“Most nontraditional pets pose a risk to the health of young children, and their acquisition and ownership should be discouraged in households with young children,” said authors of the report, which appears in the October edition of the journal Pediatrics.
Also, kids that young should avoid contact with these animals in petting zoos or other public places, the report said.
“Many parents clearly don’t understand the risks from various infections” these animals often carry, said Dr. Larry Pickering, the report’s lead author and an infectious disease specialist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For example, reptiles are thought to be responsible for about 11 percent of salmonella bacteria illnesses in children. Children are also more prone to putting their hands in their mouths, which can add to the risk of infection.
Salmonella also has been found in baby chicks, and young children can get it by kissing or touching the animals and then putting their hands in their mouths, he said.
Study co-author Dr. Joseph Bocchini said he recently treated an infant who got salmonella from the family’s pet iguana, which was allowed to roam freely in the home. The child was hospitalized for four weeks but has recovered, said Bocchini, head of the academy’s infectious diseases committee and pediatrics chairman at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.
Other dangerous exotic animals include hedgehogs, hamsters and turtles.
With supervision and precautions like hand-washing, contact between children and animals “is a good thing,” Bocchini said. But families should wait until children are older before bringing home an exotic pet, he said.
Data cited in the study indicate that about 4 million U.S. households have pet reptiles. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, all kinds of exotic pets are on the rise, although generally fewer than 2 percent of households own them.
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