It seems like a major part of keeping kids healthy these days is managing their microbial exposure. On the one hand, we’re told that letting our kids get dirty and tempering our use of hand sanitizer can help cultivate a healthy population of good microbes in and on the body, which is associated with lower rates of chronic maladies like asthma and allergies. On the other hand, we know that among all the benign and beneficial bacteria in the world lurk some that are deadly, causing diseases such as whooping cough, pneumonia and meningitis.

To treat these diseases, we need antibiotics, but the downside is that antibiotics indiscriminately kill bacteria in the body, including the ones that contribute to our health. Meanwhile, every course of antibiotics gives bacteria that are resistant to the drugs a chance to grow and thrive. That makes for more antibiotic-resistant infections, all of which are harder to treat and some of which can’t be treated at all.

Read the full article at FiveThirtyEight

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Alice Callahan is a freelance health and science writer based in Eugene, Oregon.