To ask you how literally you take the 48 hr rule?

[lougle]

So if your child is sick, how literally do you apply the 48hr rule?

If they were sick in the afternoon of Saturday, would you say 'no school on Sunday, back on Monday' or '48 hours after sickness is Monday afternoon, so back on Tuesday'?

If they are sick at 3am do you count that as 'Tuesday night' or 'Wednesday morning'?

etc.

i don't even think it's empathy. I think it's lack of common sense. Sadly. Many people lack it .

Its not common any more

I agree it doesn't matter if a child's playing happily and seems lively within 48 hours there still infectious

Well dd is now all better and her 48 hours is up so can go in tomorrow. However when I phoned on monday to tell school she would be off I was told at least four other children in her class have the bug. I was also told the schools policy was 24 hours off unless children are sick numerous times and still off their food etc.

I said I would be keeping dd off for 48 hours as that's what the NHS guidelines are. But now I don't even want to send her tomorrow as there are bound to be more infected children in that class.

Surely school should be advising 48 hours no matter what?

They should baddy but they don't because it affects their attendance rates. Which I think is daft because if they abided by the 48hr rule in the first place. Less people would be off. Ergo the attendance rate wouldn't be so badly affected. :)

For rotarvirus you are contagious before you develop any symptoms & for norovirus you are contagious as soon as you start to feel ill. For norovirus, you can be contagious up to two weeks after.

The 48 hour thing is a bit of joke really!

See now we just won't be going anywhere!

Unless you live in a sealed box, it is almost impossible to protect yourself from these ghastly gastro bugs that go around.

I feel sorry for the immuno-suppressed because this time of year must be a nightmare but I think the rather random 48 hour thing, gives a sense of false security that isn't really there. If a bug is sweeping through a class, a community etc, everyone is going to be riddled with it before they even know they've got it. Then some people will be infectious up to 2 weeks afterwards, so everything they touch, breath on etc is contaminated. 48 hours off from school to my mind is just a bit random.

I don't think its random IMO it is there for a reason. There's a note on my DCs ward every year that state's a person remains infectious for 48hours after the last symptom.

The 48 hour rule has only been around for a few years but I'm pretty sure sickness bugs were no more common 20 years ago than they are now. I reckon that exposure to minute traces of the virus from someone who was getting over sickness may have boosted immunity.

I'd be interested to know whether other MNERS think d&v bugs are any less common now than 20 or even 10 years ago.

I think they are far more common, we didn't have playdates when I was a child, you played in the street. Hardly any parties and we certainly didn't socialise, like parents do today. Also my children have often had D & V bugs after soft play, so I think is soft play is a perfect environment for viruses to spread. I've noticed many parents phone grandma to come over when their darlings have D & V, next thing Grandma has it plus all of her friends, so it continues to spread.

I think it's a combination of more opportunities to socialise indoors, coupled with an unwillingness to change plans if children are ill

48 hours, no less. If health professionals have worked out that 48 is for the best, then i will listen to them, they know more than me about these things.

My ds2 recently brought home the vomiting bug and was very efficient about it...threw up Friday afternoon and in to the night, perfectly timed for being back in school monday and my ds1 got it the following Friday early hours, meaning he too was ready for school on monday missing only one day!

I don't know what the stats are for any increase in gastro bugs, but we do have an increasingly elderly population. The elderly are particularly at risk from gastro bugs & are more likely to have to be hospitalised, so it is possible that there may be a perceived increase because of the change in our population demographic.

From a personal perspective, I remember gastro bugs sweeping through school as a kid. I don't think any more have swept through the schools since my kids have been attending in the last 10 years, but that is just one personal experience.

I never played in the street because I lived on a main road, so I went to other people's houses. We were infinitely less hygiene orientated than we are today. No one had anti-bacterial soap, we all used disgusting cloth hankies, manky old cloth hand towels, there was no 48 hour rule, so you went back to school when your mum told you to etc.

I believe that childhood illness are part of developing a healthy immune system. You fight these things off & develop better defences for the future. I worry that with all our anti-bac things we are just forcing the bugs to mutate to get around them and preventing our kids from developing robust immune systems. (Disclaimer, this applies to kids without immune suppressed disorders or health problems.)

I agree with Queen Bee.

I can see how it could be of concern to those who are immune suppressed etc but surely greater immunity among the general population is in their interests too.

My DC aren't immune suppressed but recently caught a miserable sickness bug from a child who came back too soon and promptly threw up in the lunch hall

D &/or V - next school day from when 48 hours is up. I'm pretty strict on this because otherwise you end up with a spiral effect and everyone ends up ill.

Puking as a result of a PTSD episode - school as normal the next day.

2Tineslly - how do you know that is who they caught the bug from? How do you know it wasn't someone at the supermarket, someone else in the playground, someone at your local GPs or the many other places we interact with people all the time.

My DCs are at reasonable sized schools & at this time of year there is nearly always someone barfing at school. Not usually because they've come back to soon but because they are coming down with something & end up being ill at school & then sent home. I have no idea if the bugs my DC get (or thankfully don't) will be from school, from gym club, from scouts, from the trip to the shops, the visit to A&E to have a few stitches following a sports injury, from popping over to my Mums, something I've brought home from work, from the deliciously healthy & over crowded tube etc, etc, etc

Pretty big coincidence that she was sitting next to puke girl when she hurled and then came down with it herself, and yes she had come back too soon in this case

I am a grotty scruffy person with unwashed grotty children. We get about as many tummy bugs as everyone else (no more, no less).

Maybe blame globalisation for giving the bugs so much opportunity to change that bit faster.

It is possible to get the same norovirus strain more than once but getting several does boost immunity in general.

I'm wondering whether exposure to small traces (not quite enough to get ill) may be beneficial.

Interestingly enough, I work in a school and they are very strict about 48hrs for other people's cjildren, but really don't like it when I have to take time off to look after my dc if they've been sick /d+v...