Chicken pox ethics

[blushingmare]

Ok straw poll...

Your 1yo gets chicken pox. Therefore very likely your 3yo will get it and therefore be harbouring the virus and contagious before the spots appear. But you don't know if and when it'll develop and it could be another three weeks of waiting.

Do you carry on sending your 3yo to nursery?

This is entirely hypothetical of course

[ChipsAndRedSauce]

Yes, many children can be potentially harbouring cp.

[BeatieBo]

Yes, send your child in. You can't keep them quarantined just in case. There will be other children harbouring it too. Maybe let nursery know in case they have a child who is immune compromised.

[RhubarbAndMustard]

Yes, send them in.

[NickyEds]

Yes, If you kept them off every time they might be ill aswell as every time they actually are ill they'd never go and no one would get to work! My ds is only 17 months and doesn't even go to nursery but i have come to the conclusion that all kids of this age are infectious little so and so's!!!

[blushingmare]

Thanks. Yes that is what I did, but felt a bit furtive about it and when one of the mums at the gate asked if I'd had a nice half term I felt I couldn't fess up to DS having had chicken pox as didn't know how the other mums would feel about my DD being there!

[Iggi999]

Lets hope if that mum was pg that she was immune to chickenpox.

[diddlediddledumpling]

iggi I'm not sure what your concern is. The other mum can't catch cp from op. (assuming op is immune, and if she wasn't I think she would have mentioned it in her post. )

[Iggi999]

The OP doesn't have chickenpox, it's the child at nursery playing with the other mum's child who could bring it home. Obviously this happens all the time, I just think if you have this "knowledge" you shouldn't keep it from others. Why not be forewarned that cp is going around a nursery, then you can plan for this if necessary.

[AuditAngel]

Iggi surely when it is chicken pox season (usually about late Feb to June) parents of children at nursery know it is doing the rounds. Our nursery has posters on the door of each room detailing number of suspected/confirmed cases of illnesses

[littlesupersparks]

I felt this way too when my boys had it - it took almost the full three weeks and I felt I was sending a little time bomb to the childminder! As she pointed out though, he could have had natural immunity (her daughter for example never contracted it) and not got it so that would have been a long time to keep him off. As it was, it disrupted us for an entire half term!

[meditrina]

Yes, I would send them in as there is no requirement to quarantine contacts (NHS guidelines)

If you're going to go behind what NHS recommends, then you either do it properly - full isolation for full three weeks or until ill - or you may as well not do it at all.

I thought one of my DC must have had it so mildly that I hadn't noticed, as he was never illl though went round his nursery several times (getting his siblings, a full 3 weeks between them) but he then went on to have it later in primary. So although likely, it's not inevitable that one sibling passes it to another.

[InQuiteAPickle]

I often wonder about this. Neither of my DC have had chicken pox and I always wonder what I could do if one got it but the other one didn't and had to go to school. Also the sibling with chicken pox would have to come with me to school to take non-poxy child to school as I would have no one to look after them .

If it was nursery then I woukdn't bother taking them as nursery isn't compulsory but school is. I don't think I would keep a child off "in case they were incubating chicken pox" as they might not get it. I know that it's likely that they will but it's not definite. When my friend was pregnant her 5 year old got chicken pox. He shared a room etc with her three year old but her 3 year old never got it.

[Iggi999]

Inquiteapickle - poxy child in middle of school playground not good at all, I have heard mumsnetters say they have phoned school and arranged to drop off ten minutes late, for example, so they are not bumping into many others at all.

[Siennasun]

I would take him to nursery but let nursery know that his sibling has chicken pox so they can warn any pregnant members of staff or parents.

[AuditAngel]

One time I had to collect DD2 from nursery as they thought she was contagious.

I also had to collect DS and DD1 from after school club. I called ahead and asked for them to be got ready so I could phone from the gate rather than go in. They had them stood at the end of th path waiting for me

[Starlightbright1]

yes I would... You can't live your life with ifs and buts....

[InQuiteAPickle]

Iggi999, oh yes that's an idea. I'd probably try to find someone to take the non chicken pox child to school for me but it's hard because most people I know work and don't take their kids to school.

DD1 is 8 now so maybe by the time she or DD2 get it she'll be old enough to either walk to school by herself or stay at home by herself anyway.

[ThatSmirkingWhore]

My DD had chicken pox, she had spent A LOT of time with her cousin of a similar age, cousin goes to nursery.
We had a very similar debate as to whether my sister should send her little boy to nursery, knowing he could be harbouring CP virus. In the end it was decided he should still go, as there was no way of knowing.
A year later, despite being around several children who have had CP he still has not had it, so it would have been a waste of time keeping him off nursery.
We were stunned he didn't get it at the time DD had it, as they'd spent more time together than usual in the weeks before DD got it.
Now he has been around several others with it and not caught it, we wonder if he has some sort of super immunity to it.