to not want my 3yo to go to a petting farm without me

[pianointhedark]

DD is 3.2. Her preschool are doing a trip to a petting farm, which I feel reluctant to let her go on.

My main concern is hygiene. With the best will in the world the staff cannot be watching all the children all the time, and obviously it would only take a moment for her hand to go into her mouth before it had been washed. Obviously I could impress upon her not to do that, but she's only 3 and I can't expect her to understand why or remember.

I did ask whether they needed any parent helpers, but the answer was no. I then told a little white lie - that DD can be wary of animals and for that reason I would prefer to be with her, but again the answer was no - apparently they can't allow one parent to go because then all will want to go and they're sure DD will be fine.

AIBU to not want her to go? Sometimes I worry that I am being overly PFB and would appreciate some MN perspective.

Your poor DD. There will be group discussions, follow up activities etc and you're putting your anxiety ahead of your daughters enjoyment.

Do you have any idea how much planning goes into these trips? How long we spend on risk assessments? Going to the place first to check out hand washing facilities? Making sure children who do put their hands in their mouths a lot are with a grown up in a smaller group so we can minimise risk etc.

I took my own PFB to a petting zoo two weeks ago. I'd been years ago with my nieces, but this time it gave me the heebie jeebies. She didn't like it, incidentally - was scared of the pigs - but it didn't make her ill. It was very educational. I didn't want her growing up thinking that all pigs are like Peppa!

Not fatal in many cases. Please keep some perspective here and don't spout scaremongering stuff.

If a bad case happens, then yes its terrible but please don't automatically presume that most cases will be the same.

Ecoli Not sure what that pointed remark was for?! I never suggested that E Coli was anything over than the horrible illness that it is, just unsure of the fixation on it given it's unlikeliness.

nibbers it was my mum who did it to me! I suspect you're right - with microwaves in their day they might've actually been onto something. To be fair if we ended up with one I wouldn't refuse to have it or anything, just never bought one and weird back of the head 'evil rays' memory makes me not think it's needed.

Very occasionally people come over and notice and think it's a sign that I'm a 'make everything from scratch' special cooking person, which is obviously a bonus.

It is also not true to say there is no treatment.

Op..

your Mind was made up before you even wrote the thread your DD wasn't going ..You just wanted everyone to agree. a Few have and one has given you all the ammunition you need to stop the trip.

Hope you have a nice Day at home with DD.

MaryZ According to Patient.co.uk

Most patients recover spontaneously by 1-2 weeks after symptoms start. Infants, children and the elderly are at greatest risk of complications.

Risk of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS):
For children aged

Candy - not pointed, just emphasising the severity of this illness.

Nibbers, have you missed the part where I said my child nearly died? Not scaremongering but telling the truth. I have pointed out however that I have not stopped my children from visiting petting farms since as I understand the unlikelihood. What I do want to point out is that it isn't just a tummy bug
Oh and the only treatment is to mitigate the symptoms, eg dialysis/blood transfusions. The HUS can't actually be stopped. Or do you know something that the most eminent consultants don't know? Do share

I remember clearly when Pennington came out & made those comments, also the counter comments that were made by other qualified people.
The striking thing was that although Pennington is an expert in the mechanics of microbrial disease, he is NOT an expert in risk assessment or risk management. He was commenting on something he's not expert in.
E Coli nowadays isn't what we had as kids, it's a really nasty new bug.
The risks are still very tiny.

nibbers - that was my post about risk assessment. It was in response the OP's post where she said that there was a small risk of ecoli so therefore it was a bad idea taking a child to a petting farm.

I was trying to explain that to assess risk, the fact that it is such a small risk means that actually visiting a petting farm is a relatively safe activity compared with something we do all the time, like travelling in a car. If you take the likelihood of something happening out of the equation, risk assessment is meaningless.

Thank you Maryz.
You are right about the statistics when it is your child affected. I had 2 under 5s with e-coli. 1 was absolutely fine, the other nearly died. So in my children it was a 50% chance of contracting HUS, luckily a 0% fatality rate. But others in the same ward (unrelated outbreaks/cases) were sadly not so lucky.
Incidentally, nothing was ever publicised about the farm or our case and to this day people visiting remain in ignorance that it happened there.

Have a browse Look at the report that begins page 11. The general public are woefully unaware and/or misunderstand the risk.

Blimey, I never watched dd when we've been to a petting farm to make sure fingers didnt go in her mouth.

We even went alpaca trekking and fed goats last weekend. Never washed hands after and then went and ate chips without a fork.

I've no idea how she's made it to a teenager when I'm such a slattern.

I think she's immune to most bugs by now.

Oh no, I never wash fruit either.

E. coli outbreaks in petting farms are not uncommon, people only hear know about Godstone because of the size of the outbreak and all the investigations that followed. There was an outbreak in Lancashire just over Easter.

www.gov.uk/government/news/multi-agency-investigation-in-e-coli-o157-cases-in-lancashire

I do think that a 15% risk of developing HUS from E. Coli O157 is not a negligible one. Farms aren't inherently unsafe, if the child can wash (not antibac!) their hands thoroughly. And picnics are held away from the animals.

I haven't read all the pages, as there are so many. Have read a few though. Hope the thread hasn't moved on much!
Anyway, just wanted to throw my two pennies in for what it's worth. I know where you're coming from. Seriously, I do.Whenever mine go on trips with school, I keep myself occupied so that I'm not thinking about it.
My eldest has just been away on first ever residential week with PRIMARY school. A whole week of dangerous activities such as caving, canoeing, abseiling, orienteering, potholing etc,
At the age of TEN! I was a wreck just thinking about it. I could quite easily have said no, you're not going. That wouldn't have been fair, though. AS that's MY issue, not my childs.
I didn't want my child to miss out on opportunities and fun because of ME being a wuss. It wouldn't have been fair.
I just sucked it up for the week even though it felt like the longest week EVER
Do the same with your child. Seriously. The school will have a risk assessment thingy in place, and have to have a set ratio of staff to a certain amount of pupils.
They'll be fine and have a whale of a time. If you've got no other small ones, take yourself off for a haircut, or shopping or something to take your mind off things.
If other small ones, go to soft play, order a bacon butty, cup of tea/coffee and read all the papers and trash mags in peace until pick up time.

^ Great post Maryz.

True Maryz. And for every person saying they have been severely affected by chicken pox, there will be 10 saying it's completely harmless and 5 saying that they once had a spotty rash and therefore can't see why there is a fuss about chicken pox because it's the same thing.

I do think that farms are better equipped now and have many more hand washing facilities than before, but some people will still ignore the warnings. I would assume that any school/nursery would be extra vigilant though.

Well, I may have missed some of the points here, but I'm aware that some children recently have contracted E Coli as a result of petting animals at a petting farm. Hand mouth hygiene etc cannot be of negligible significance - if that's being suggested, it's rubbish. I think the OP is correct to think her DD is at slightly higher risk because the hand mouth hygiene is unlikely to be as carefully monitored. But I agree with other posters that overall the risk is very small. I wouldn't personally think twice about letting my DD go - but it's a personal decision really, isn't it.

Maryz, I doubt there was anything we could have done to prevent it. It's entirely possible that someone brushed against a contaminated fence or touched a contaminated tap at the hand washing area. Or it may have been on the wellies which would have been pulled off by hand. Let's face it, dh or I could have picked it up from somewhere on the farm and then held hands with our children. There are so many possibilities that I don't torture myself with "what ifs". The chances of it actually having been contacted from direct contact with the animals are fairly low given all the other ways it could have been picked up.
I do feel cross that nothing was done about it (no massive improvements noticeable at the farm wrt hand washing facilities) although obviously there are bigger posters up warning of the dangers. The hand washing area was quite a walk from various petting areas too and I'm not aware of any extra facilities being added. This was despite us obviously notifying Public Health and all having to be tested, and the conclusion being drawn that the farm was the most likely source.