Ever wonder how clean baby gear is? We take an ATP meter to test three car seats. Each car seat had varying degrees of soil on them with different ATP readings. The results are rather spectacular.
Per wikipedia, an “ATP test is a process of rapidly measuring actively growing microorganisms through detection of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.” The cool science part is that the enzyme used in the test swab is similar to that which makes fireflies glow. When the enzyme comes in contact with living microorganisms, it emits a little bit of light. The meter then measures that light and spits out a number. That number, however, is not a direct representation of the number of microorganisms on the surface, rather it is an indicator of such. A low number is good, while a higher number is bad.
Any number less than 35 is considered safe enough for food preparation in a restaurant. That means it doesn’t take much to get us sick. Imagine the fallen cheerio your child finds a week later after an explosive diaper you never managed to spend enough time cleaning up. Pretty unsettling, huh?
Before steaming and sanitizing these three child car seats, we took an initial ATP test of each. Here are the initial test results:
- Initial Test Car Seat #1 = 503
- Initial Test Car Seat #2 =Â 454
- Initial Test Car Seat #3 =Â 269
After our unique process of steam and pioneering application of probiotics, we then took a final reading. Keep in mind that since probiotics are living things, the ATP meter will pick them up in the test too. Not to worry though, probiotics are amazing at what they do and can reduce ATP for days (really!! It’s true!!). In our experience, the probiotics will take the ATP reading down to single digits in a matter of an hour or two. In these cases, we had to get the seats back to their owners so we couldn’t test that far into the future.
Here are the final test results:
- Final Test Car Seat #1 = 57
- Final Test Car Seat #2 = 41
- Final Test Car Seat #3 = 19
The moral of the story is it doesn’t take much to get us sick. Keep your child car seat and other baby gear clean and sanitized. When you do that, your child’s risk of infection significantly drops.
If your child car seat can use a sprucing up and a thorough sanitizing, Germz Be Gone is here to help.