Do you have adult children? Can I ask a quick question?

[Naptrappedmummy]

Were childhood illnesses always this bad? It seems the norm now among parents I know for children to be unwell every other week (and I’m not exaggerating) until they reach school age at least. I don’t just mean snotty noses but also things that regularly require antibiotics, hospital admissions for oxygen and so on. A lot of newborns seem to be hospitalised with RSV at the moment.

My DD was unwell for about 2 years after starting nursery to the point I spent many nights sobbing, broken by the lack of sleep and inability to keep up with my job. I very nearly had to hand in my notice.

My mother in law is of the view there must be something wrong because while her children got sick, it was never as bad or frequent as this. The doctors just tell me it’s normal for children now.

YABU = yes my children were always this unwell this frequently, it’s normal
YANBU = they were unwell at times but not to this extent, it’s worse than it used to be

My AC are 42 and 40. The MMR vaccinations weren't around then, so both my kids had Measles, one had Mumps, the other had Rubella, both had Chickepox.

(The MMR vaccine is the safest and most effective way to protect yourself against measles, mumps and rubella. Since the vaccine was introduced in 1988, these conditions have become rare in the UK - from Google, because someone accused me of making up the fact that the vaccine wasn't around then)

I have 2 ‘adult’ children (19 and 20) and 2 primary age. My 20 year old was in and out of hospital every few months on nebulisers and having steroids for 6 years as whenever she got a cold it went to her chest. My 19yo has only ever had antibiotics once and that was tooth related.

my 6 year old hasn’t had antibiotics and only seems to get a few colds a year but my 4 year old spends winters with a constant cough and upper respiratory infections and has had antibiotics quite a few times already.

me - born 1981 and wasn’t vaccinated past the first one as had a reaction to it so mum never took me back. I had measles, German measles, mumps and whooping cough as a child. I can remember being in bed with a bell to ring and my sisters not being allowed near me for one of them. No hospital visits though and the doctor only ever came out when we had chicken pox, and brought his kids with him so they were exposed!!!

My two are 19 and 21. Both had hospital admissions for RSV as babies/toddlers and one had ongoing respiratory issues, was tested for cystic fibrosis etc, on steroids and antibiotics. It resolved itself eventually.

I think parents are more proactive about getting treatment for sick kids than they used to be. Parents in their 70s might say their kids were never really ill, just normal bugs etc, but there are plenty of us in early middle age walking around with damaged hearing/weak lungs/scars/etc because we weren't treated for things that today's parents would get sorted out.

I remember one winter when I was at the GP every week with one of my three. They had multiple ear/throat/chest infections. I once walked in, the receptionist was nice to me and I burst into tears as I'd just had enough.

We moved into a house with a garden the next year, and the GP barely saw us from then, even though we tried really hard to get them out in the fresh air every day possible, it was much better once we moved.

DS is 31, he went to nursery from 6 months, had a lot of colds, a couple of lots of conjunctivitis and chicken pox but apart from that was well. Throughout school he only had one time when he was off sick for a few days with a fluey type illness, he did suffer badly from hay fever in the summer from about 8. I don't recall he had antibiotics apart from when he had conjunctivitis.

They're in their 20s now and yes, they were always down with something. First few weeks of every new term were worse than the rest with the start of the new school year the worst of the lot for some reason.

Cold after cold in the winter.
Kids played pass the snotty nosed parcel for months.

Both had chicken pox. All the kids did. I don't know if young children today all get it.

My now 26 yo had ear infections galore and lots of bad colds as well as chicken pox. I was a single mum.
Did your MIL work? And did she have the whole additional work stress going on that so many mums now have to cope with? If not her memory might be rose tinted.
Obviously lockdown and increasing awareness mean illnesses and our attitudes might have changed.

I think this is really hard to tell. Young children were not taken to A and E or admitted to hospital for things they are now days.
I can remember as a teenager babysitting for a child with asthma struggling with breathing. She was like that for 3 days before being admitted to hospital. No one would risk that these days. My sister fell of a high wall and was knocked unconscious and was sick. The Dr came out and just said to keep an eye on her.

The threshold for hospital was much higher.

@TooShortToReachThatShelf

The singular rubella vaccine was actually introduced in the UK in 1970. I had it in 1973 at school.

And children did not have the 48 hour rule for sickness. They just went to school as soon as they were no longer being sick.

@mantyzer yes I was thinking that too

My eldest is 25. She rarely picked up anything as a child. Had very mild chickenpox, maybe two bouts of norovirus that I can think of. Indeed I took her into school one morning and she was the only child to arrive as everybody else was struck down with norovirus. She completely swerved it. She had a couple of bouts of tonsillitis but definitely was a very rarely sick child. My 12 yo DS is much the same.

I've thought about this before when someone commented kids have alot more colds/illnesses and my view is that we mix in much wider circles now. For example at my child's school (not in UK) there are over 30 different nationalities represented and if people go back to their country of origin for holidays or if family come over here to visit them then we are being exposed to germs from lots of different places whereas in the 70s/80s we didn't travel as much nor as far and wide

When my children were young they were given antibiotics every time they saw the GP which I think shortened illness time. Also as has been said earlier they didn't really mix until they were 3+ when they started playgroup.

We probably did not have the starting nursery plague of viruses you have now, as most young children and babies mixed with more children and adults from a young age. Toddlers would play with lots of neighbours children and see a lot of family members. So by the time they started school or nursery they had already had a lot of exposure.

Lots of kids were ill in 60s-80s, but parents were far less anxious than now. My step-mum (born 1940s) recalls polio scares in summer and kids suffering with measles.

My kids are almost all adults. I think my kids got relatively good genes because I'm more robust than my peers, too. That said, DC3 got hospitalised with wheezing & repeat wheezing bouts for 10-12 years after (not again hospitalised). DC3 has had 2 ear infections, DC1 has had tonsillitus and poinsy, DD got UTIs. We had countless bouts of norovirus. DC4 was miserable with chickenpox & got impetigo (we took no precautions, it didn't spread). Some baby DC had repeat conjunctivitis until we stopped treating mild bouts & found out it can go away without antiBs. Nobody ever got taken to hospital in an ambulance but I recall a MN thread about 15-18 years ago when lots of MNers were telling stories about their kids whizzed to hospital in ambulance.

My eldest one (now 18 ) was forever getting any bug going. Hospital three times in one year..... concussion from the playground at school, swallowed batteries (double AA) and broke his wrist when he fell off a fence. Got the usual colds and ear infection. His brother didn't go to accident and emergency till he was 15 😂😂

Your MIL is correct. I grew up in a time where we did not attend nursery or soft-play and we did not get ill like these days. My child never attended preschool we can’t recall the last time she had a minor cold. Modern parents have been led to believe that it’s normal now and that falling ill builds up their little immune systems. It’s junk science.

My 18 year old dd had antibiotics for the first time this year for a throat infection.

I have 2 adult children my eldest caught all sorts of bugs and colds flus chicken pox ect worse when he went to school.
My youngest got the flu once and chicken pox that's it.

But my eldest had all his school jabs and other jabs at doctors. My youngest only had one jab in his life and that was when he was born his immune system is like led.
He never gets sick he's a big lad very healthy.
His brother is the same but did say I think the jabs have something to do with it.
Who knows.

My DC are adults, @AlienatedChildGrown

They are in their early 20s and didn't go to nursery, but I did take them to playgroups etc. Back then, it seemed to me that children who went to nursery were always ill - permanently snotty and frequent D&V. But I don't remember anything that required hospitalisation.

When my DC1 started school, we were all ill for about 9 months non stop, but I was the only one who ended up in hospital!

My DC all had chickenpox as babies/toddlers and were itchy and miserable but nothing worse than that. They had the MMR vaccination belatedly, once they were at school.

I suspect part of the problem with young children now is that they weren't exposed to everyday coughs and colds and viruses during lockdown, so are now being hit harder by things that children would normally shake off relatively easily due to having stronger immune systems.

Yeah, I have a twenty five year old and tbh in my experience she was far worse for needing antibiotics and having illnesses than my 6 year old twins have ever been, despite being breastfed ; my twins were formula fed and have been nowhere near as bad. It turns out she has a lot of allergies though.

our 3 boys are all in their 30's-early 40's now & while the younger 2 were born 2 months early (ear infections in one Ive just remembered resulting in grommets at about 4yrs old) I can count on one hand the very few illnesses they had to keep them off school.

Our eldest had scarlet fever & nothing else, our middle son got a half dose of the measles with his cousin (no spots & def no lack of energy from being unwell but Dr said white spots in his mouth etc etc) & our youngest nothing.

So no chicken pox, mumps, rubellas etc. Various broken bones from motor bike sports as they got into teen years but not unwell stuff. Our eldest even got a certificate when he was about intermediate age as he was the only student in the entire school not to have had a sick day in that whole school year.

The boys did attend playgroups & we socialised lots, played sports so it def wasnt from lack of exposure to other kids & their bugs.

I’m 31, so grew up in the 90s, and my older brother was constantly ill from ages 5-8. He had such bad/persistent coughs and colds that a doctor found his throat had been scarred by it (and I believe still scarred in adulthood). He was on constant antibiotics & a lot of hospital stays.

I however, rarely had antibiotics, didn’t really get sick as a kid - so I think it depends on the child.

Fewer children are dying of infectious diseases - interesting article from the British medical journal.

www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/infections-still-responsible-for-1-in-5-childhood-deaths-in-england-and-wales/

Certainly if you go back far enough - so my dad was a kid in the fifties - there were plenty of children with polio and measles lots of whom died. Very few nurseries around then.

The impression I get from the article is that most of the decline in the death rates are due to vaccinations rather than anything else but this is not my area.