Skip to content
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Menu
  • Happy Health
  • Happy Mindset
  • Animal Wonders
  • About Us
    • Team
  • Subscribe
Happy NEws

Daycare Rewilded Its Yard And Children Got Healthier Immediately

A groundbreaking study at Humpula daycare center in Lahti, Finland showed that when 75 children were exposed to nature-like elements five times a week, their body’s microbes diversified dramatically and offered powerful protection against diseases transmitted through the immune system. The study published in Science Advances in 2021 found that children who got down and dirty in rewilded daycare yards had lower levels of Clostridium bacteria linked with inflammatory bowel disease, higher levels of protective T cells in their blood, and fewer infectious disease causing Streptococcus bacteria on their skin. The results were so impressive that Finland’s Natural Resources Institute is now launching a nationwide survey of 43 daycares compared to the original sample of just 75 children, measuring how increased microbial exposure changes children’s skin, gut, and oral microbiomes.

The Finnish government awarded one million euros in grants to 43 daycare centers specifically for adding garden space, planter boxes, compost heaps, and other natural features to their properties based on the original study’s remarkable findings. Humpula daycare went all in on the concept, substituting its grass garden for a giant 107 square foot section of actual forest floor that’s 12 inches deep and pre loaded with wild lingonberry and blueberry seeds, plus bugs, mosses, lichen, and trillions of beneficial microbes. The daycare now boasts a vegetable patch using compost to provide dirt covered healthy vegetables for the center’s kitchen, and five year olds enthusiastically bake mud and sand chocolate cakes as part of their daily play. Scientists will collect hair, saliva, and stool samples along with parent questionnaires about infectious diseases to robustly measure how a wilder daycare impacts children’s immune health nationwide. If this profile can be replicated across Finland, a massive financial and health burden could be lifted from the national community, proving that sometimes the best medicine for children is simply letting them play in the dirt.

PrevPreviousThese Children Are Building Businesses And Helping Their Community
NextThis Simple Act Of Kindness For A Snake Goes ViralNext

Recent Articles

Happy News

She Beat Cancer And Then Adopted A Hawk

March 25, 2026

When the first Covid lockdown arrived, most people tried baking sourdough or following along with an exercise video. Candida Meyrick did something rather more unusual: she adopted a Harris Hawk fledgling, and the decision changed her life in ways she is still discovering. Candida, who had come through breast cancer

Read More
Happy News

Speed-Dating For Friends Is Here: Speed-Friending

March 25, 2026

America is in the middle of what researchers are calling a friendship recession, and the numbers behind it are striking. In 1990, about 3 percent of Americans said they had no friends at all. Today that figure has grown to somewhere between 12 and 20 percent, a shift that scientists

Read More
Happy News

The 2028 LA Olympics Just Revealed Its Official Look

March 24, 2026

The countdown to Los Angeles 2028 just got a lot more colorful. LA28, the organizing committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics, has unveiled the official visual identity for the Games — and it’s a breathtaking love letter to Southern California. Dubbed “LA in Full Bloom,” the design concept is inspired

Read More
« Previous Next »
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Privacy Notice
  • Accessibility Notice
  • Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information
  • Unsubscribe
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2026 HappyNews.