Mums advice: Top tips for preventing colds and flu this winter

If there's one thing you can guarantee about a child, it's that they'll catch some, if not all, of the bugs going round their school or nursery.

And what's almost as certain is that someone else in the family - usually mum - will then catch it too.

Indeed, that lastest research shows the average mum will fall ill 324 times over their offspring's childhood with colds and bugs passed on to them by their child.

An endless cycle of sore throats, runny noses and sickness bugs means the average mum will feel under the weather 18 times a year, suffering from a total of 54 colds, 108 sore throats or runny noses, 36 sickness bugs and an annual bout of flu.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, says: "Spending so much time with their children, it's inevitable that parents are at higher risk of picking up any illnesses their child has, particularly viral infections such as colds that children inevitably catch from their friends and classmates.

"Ensuring good hygiene practices will reduce the chance of infections passing around the entire family."

When they are ill, women tend to soldier on and 72% of then reckon they cope better than their partner when they're ill.

Psychologist Dr Meg Arroll says this pattern may be related to our innate drive to do everything we can to ensure our offspring's survival.

"In our ancestors' time, men would have needed to be fit and well to 'fight-or-flight' in face of a threat," she explains.

"But women, having different roles, safeguarded their family.

"We haven't changed that much, and so even now with differing gender roles, women's protective instincts kick in - they care for others over themselves, whereas men maintain their own physical fitness in order to protect and provide for their families."