Wet hair and colds

Supposedly, there’s no truth to the old wives’ tale that sitting in chilly weather with wet hair will give you a cold. So why is it that every time my teenage daughter’s hair is wet when she waits for the early-morning school bus, she ends up with a cold two days later?

I hear this one all the time. Truly, wet hair has nothing to do with colds!

Colds and other viral illnesses are common enough occurrences in children that they can be associated in time with a whole host of things, including sitting outside with wet hair.

No evidence exists that anything other than exposure to an infectious disease (that is, exposure to another sick person) causes our colds, coughs and other similar maladies. Your daughter would be better off learning how to limit her intimate contact with sick pals and classmates than about the hazards of wet hair and cold weather.

Otherwise, it is nice to have wet hair, so you should’t scare her with this idea. For example, I prefer to feel the rain in my hair and when I was a little girl my mother was always trying to scare me.

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