SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Nearly every parent has them and nearly every kid loves them: bath-time toys. Rubber duckies and all sorts of floating figurines are popular among kids. It's what's inside of those toys, however, that no parent would ever want their kid to have.
From the outside, bath toys look pretty clean and harmless. But, as soon as they fill up with water and your child squeezes it out, they can quickly become harmful, and you can then see that the cute little duckies aren't as clean as you might think.
For even longer than Sesame Street's Ernie has been scrubbing in the tub, kids have been making some fond memories at tub time playing with rubber duckies. Just peek in on the Morrow family. Bath time for little Landon and Piper is always an adventure. That adventure suddenly and unknowingly gets risky as soon as the toys come out, however.
"These huge chunks of mold come out and it's amazing how much it coats the inside of every toy that has the hole in it," Carmen Morrow said as she bathed her children recently.
What forms inside the toys is potentially dangerous mold. A test of a chunky cow, for instance, found it tipping the scales with its mold reading.
"Here's our winner! The hippo/cow is reading at 4,554 and the standard was below 30. So the standard below 30 -- we're clean; 30 to 150, we're in a cautionary range, so, at 4,554, we're severely contaminated," said Devon Taylor with Springfield Indoor Air Quality.
That same type of little toy is bobbing around in tubs with countless kids. It's a virtual petri dish full of mold in the tub every night.
"That's pretty nasty," said Morrow.
Under the microscope, scientist and mold expert Jim Echols can see just how nasty.
"We have clatosporium, we have yeast, we have bacteria," Echols said as he looked through his microscope.
"One of the common symptoms I see is rhinitis. The coughing, runny nose, scratchy eyes -- it's one of the most common things we see in people exposed to mold."
Echols says it could explain a lot.
"If you have a child who has no other exposure and the child is coughing for no reason whatsoever, then possibly this might be the source," he said.
Chances are good your child will be no worse for the wear -- just maybe grossed out.
"It's the equivalent of taking a bite of moldy bread. You generally aren't going to get sick from that. It's kind of gross to think about, but you're going to do okay," said pediatrician Dr. Robert Steele.
Steele says really the only other issue is in kids who already have compromised immune systems.
"For those children that are allergic to mold and so they have asthmatic symptoms primarily because of mold, that potentially could make things worse, make their coughing worse."
So, as tempting as it is to keep old rubber ducky around, you'd better not.
"I've squirted them out, put them in the dishwasher and I guess they are never able to get totally dry," said Morrow.
So, how long can your child safely play with these toys before they're trash? Do the squeeze test. As soon as mold starts squirting out, trash it.
If you're really ambitious, you can suck bleach water up into the toy, but experts say even that won't clean them fully. Because, as long as there is moisture in the toy, it's a breeding ground for mold and other nasty stuff.
