To be terrified of addicts contaminating baby changing tables?

[SpikyCactus]

Apparently drug addicts are using baby changing tables to shoot up drugs. So changing your baby could expose them to fatal traces of drugs or infected blood.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6208231/Indiana-mother-reveals-shocking-truth-black-marks-left-babys-changing-table.html

AIBU to be utterly terrified?

[BasiliskStare]

This reminds me of "outside pavement disease" & I will ever fondly remember the poster who coined that phrase. OK I know it's not the same but made me smile. I have relatives who live a very "naice" place and in one very smart restaurant all shelves in the loos are on a slope to stop handy drug usage. I really don't think ingestible drugs can be transmitted to a baby via osmosis give reasonable precautions.

[HopeGarden]

I don’t think it’s likely to happen in supermarket toilets or in shopping centres.

I’ve just remembered one shopping centre baby change I used a year or two ago. The baby change was locked with a radar key so I had to find a cleaner to open it for me.

It was purely a baby change, not doubled with a disabled toilet or anything, it just had a changing table, sink and bin, so I was puzzled about it being locked. It also was lit by blue uv lights rather than normal lights.

I was talking to someone about it later - apparently that particular town has a drug problem and loads of the public toilets there have been fitted with the blue lights to make it harder for junkies to inject drugs. Which also probably explains why the baby change was fitted with a radar key lock.

[eelbecomingforyou]

Are you in Indiana, OP?

[Lovemusic33]

I think it only happens in rough public toilets, most of these have been shut down here, I don’t think it’s likely to happen in supermarket toilets or in shopping centres. I wouldn’t change a baby in dirty public loos anyway, would rather change them in my car or find a clean area.

[hannah1992]

I have always used my own changing mat to put on the top of them. For the people saying take news, I watched Jeremy Kyle do this on the Kyle files once (only time I ever watched it) and he was going around shopping centre changing rooms and testing the changing tables for cocaine. Nearly all of them came up positive for it. Mothers were shocked.

People do use them for drugs as they are somewhere inconspicuous that not many would think about.

But yeah I had a good away mat that I use to put on top of them

[AltheaorDonna]

Yes addicts use baby changing toilets to snort and shoot up. Just make sure you wipe down and maybe put a nappy down first before changing your baby, and no harm done.

The needles in fruit thing is happening in Oz at the minute, lots have been found in strawberries ( also bananas and mangos) , possibly people copying the original culprit. Where I live people are going all out to buy extra strawberries to support the farmers. You just make sure to cut them up first.

[Onlyhappywhenitrains1]

I saw this and my first thought was, where are all the reports of babies hospitalised from drug exposure.

There arn't any. So even if addicts are using the changing tables, it's not affecting the babies.

Plus would you really cut up drugs where there may have been baby poo. Don't most people use the top of the tank bit or the lid of the seat.

[abbsisspartacus]

I changed my son's on my lap 🤷‍♀️

[Easynow]

Use your lap. I would be more worried about D&V tbh.

[Pandamodium]

You do sound very anxious.

I won't even today use metal spoons available to the public after DH inadvertently ended up high as a kite after making a coffee in hospital.

Spoons were checked and locked in the staff room till further notice. I worry (but I also have anxiety) about fentanyl like a previous poster, common in my area and so, so strong. A patient during that hospital stay of DH's died after sneaking out the hospital to take it coming back and been given methadone by the clueless staff.

[Tawdrylocalbrouhaha]

Drugs are the least of your worries, if you are putting a baby onto one of those filthy changing shelves without a mat of some kind.

I got a big roll of catering paper towel and carried a few lengths so I could chuck it after changing DS. I wouldn't put a mat back in my bag after touching those shelves.

[Spudlet]

I still shudder slightly when I remember the Hellraiser/Poonami mash-up that DS produced mid-nappy change on the changing table of Pizza Express, when he was 3 or 4 months old. How can such a small being produce such gigantic quantities of pooh all at once?! Obviously I left it clean to the eye, but it probably wasn't sterile 🤦‍♀️ And Lord have mercy on the poor sod that followed us in. They probably thought it was me

I'd think that's a more likely changing table scenario, frankly (and always carried a travel mat when he was little).

[Singerleon]

This is the sort of thing I’d normally roll my eyes at, especially as it’s in the Daily mail but I found the remnants of two lines of coke on a changing table in a sports facility last year. Horrified!

[PaintBySticker]

This is the kind of thing I might have fixated on when I was struggling with anxiety. As suggested above, if worries like this are impacting your life then please see your GP.

[Oblomov18]

Eh? How exactly would it infect your baby?
Please see your GP re your extreme anxiety.

[Skyejuly]

Well mine all survived and i didn't always wipe them down. I dont think people need to worry about this.

[PoxAlert]

I was always terrified of poo germs being on the changing tables so would wipe them and put a mat down anyway.

[INeedNewShoes]

You can buy disposable bed mats. The ones sold and marketed towards incontinent adults are a lot cheaper than the baby change mats.

I carry one of those around in the changing bag so that if I changing table looks like it isn't clean I'll use that. It happens very rarely - I'm still on the first pack of 25 and DD is 16m!

I'd worry more about germs from other babies' nappies than drugs though!

[EdisonLightBulb]

Most people changing a baby would have wipes with them, goes without saying that you would surely give the mat or table a quick wipe.

That's without even considering drugs.

[Mummyoflittledragon]

The fruit thing has made me cautious. I now cut fruit up smaller for dd. But she’s getting older herself so would realise something was wrong. I always wiped over changing mats and in this case would just systematically use a travel one over the top of the ones provided. You could even put the mat to the side and use your own.

[BitchQueen90]

Yes YABU. Never heard of anything bad happening to a baby from a contaminated changing table.

[Sockwomble]

Use a changing mat. At least you are not having to change your child on the floor.

[Loopytiles]

Anxiety.

Classic tabloid scaremongering.

Tabloids are best avoided if, like me, you have anxiety issues!

[JellyBears]

Use your own changing mat from the nappy bag. Most places lock the disabled/baby change rooms at night.

I wouldn’t be terrified I would just be cautious. ;)

[Itchytights]

Surely you clean it first then put down a changing mat.