Hygiene in child-care centres and more particularly disinfection of child-care centres are brought to the fore every year due to the numerous cases of gastroenteritis, influenza, measles or other contagious diseases.

There are important risks of infection in child-care centres because of the many exchanges between children and other children, toys, babies' bottles, nipples ... Indeed, those are little or not disinfected, which leads to the transmission of pathogens if the child is in the incubation phase of infection. The reasons of those risks can be related to improper cleaning of the bottles and / or of the nipples or to a poor hygiene among the staff and in the environment.

However, the risk of infection in a child care centre is not limited to the use of babies' bottles ; that is why the respect of hygiene rules is essential :

• a correct hygiene of the staff's hands, before and after food contact, manipulation of nappies, babies' bottles, etc. ...
• a correct hygiene of the children's hands before and after meals, use of toilets, at the beginning of the day etc ....
• a correct hygiene of premises, furniture, closets, toys and other objects
• the babies' bottles, major source of contamination, shall be fill up in a clean room designed for this purpose

Be careful : the use of chlorinated solutions is not recommended for hygiene in day-care centres and particularly concerning the care of babies' bottles. When choosing a disinfectant for such a care, it is essential to respect some criteria:

• The chosen disinfectant must comply with current standards of disinfection (EN 1040, EN 1275, NF T 72-180 ...)
• The chosen disinfectant must not be toxic to mankind or environment
• The chosen disinfectant must be approved for "food contact" and therefore for the ingestion of the disinfected objects by children

We must also keep in mind that feeding infants with milk provides a highly favorable environment for bacterial development, which underlines the importance of hygiene measures in day-care centres .