To take my DS out when he has hand foot and mouth?

[Poppet45]

Okay so DS 15 months is just getting over hand foot and mouth. It's been six days now and his spots appear to have all crusted over but until today we've been staying indoors at all times where possible, and only going on quiet country walks where I know we won't see anyone on those days when his quarantine was driving us both loopy. Doc said we should keep away from kids and pregnant women for a week, but didn't know if it was chickenpox (which it definitely wasn't) HFN or an unspecified virus. I'm fairly sure it was HFM as all the spots have been on his hands, feed and (um predictably) mouth.
However today I had to go and pick up a prescription, buy some milk as our tesco delivered supplies had run out, and also drop off his photo order form at playgroup for his xmas pics. He went out under his buggy's zipped up raincover, we didn't see a single pregnant woman, and he never went inside the playgroup. I parked his buggy in an empty corridor and nipped in alone.
I googled before we went out and it said there was no evidence HFN unlike chicken pox was any risk to pregnant women unless they were in there final few weeks when there was a chance the baby could get it.
So were we being unreasonable? I have a horrid feeling we were. What do other mums do in this position?

[deaconblue]

nope sounds like you've taken all the precautions possible to avoid him spreading the infection and it's not like you were off on a jolly, you were doing essential jobs

[Niecie]

YANBU - you took precautions, it would be extremely unlikely that your DS would have infected anybody at all.

You had to do certain jobs so you did them - you didn't take him to the playground or indoor soft play or even into his playgroup. He obviously didn't touch anybody or get the chance to cough or sneeze on anybody. Don't worry about it.

And fwiw, I would have done the same.

[FerminaUrbinoDaza]

YANBU. TBH by being kept in the rain cover he was effectively still quarantined anyway.

The strict quarantine thing for seems to be a British quirk. We're on the continent. DS had HF&M recently and we were advised to avoid pregnant women and tiny babies but were told it was fine to go out and have contact with the general public. Nurserys are happy to accept children with any illness that are well enough to go IYSWIM (including chickenpox, HF&M, D&V etc.). This is because the other children in the group will have already been exposed to the virus before symptoms appeared.

[Poppet45]

Oh thank you all for being so nice. I had a chickenpox scare when I was pregnant myself so am somewhat neurotic about the whole issue. I would have left him with someone ideally but no family nearby and my good friend who would normally have him was out.