To be cross that a mother took her healthy child to see a child with chicken pox because she wanted her child to get it which she did and now my daughter and few other in the class have got it from her DD

[schmoopoo]

AAARGH

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Also, the more infections children are exposed to in general the better their immune system becomes and they are less likely to get really nasty things like luekaemia.

A 6 year boy in my DS class had a stroke following chicken pox. There is a strong link between childhood strokes.

My dads friend has set up a charity about this.

His ds caught Chciekn Pox and then got Leukemia as a result and died

He is trying to make parents aware that this getting kids together to get chicken pox out of the way is a very bad thing.
He is horrified everytime he hears about it.

So YANBU

was he ill, youknownothingofthecrunch?

my dh caught it off the children when he was in his 30s and had it terrible. He was in bed for a week with it but 2 weeks off work. It inflamed all his psoriasis and he developed a different type following the chickenpox which al became infected Chickenpox beckoned on our house for over a month though as dd had, 2 weeks later ds1 had it, 2 weeks after that dh had it!

I don't mind my children having it but it is the fact that she put everybody elses child at risk of getting it I was hoping to visit a friend who is having chemo in a fortnight but won't now as DS hasn't had it and could be incubating it. My friend is terminally ill and lives 200 miles away I may never see her again now

nbg are you sure he got leukemia as result of it and not that he had leukemia and it reactivated the chickenpox (which never leaves your system)....?

Sorry to hear that Schmoopoo.

It was all really quick. Perfectly healthy one week, got chicken pox which got worse, went into hospital and died shortly after. Not sure what he actually "died" of IYSWIM.

Very, very sad. Left behind young children.

oif, I'm sure.

He wouldnt have set a chairty up and be constantly trying to make parents aware of this otherwise.

I can understany why you are pissed of as it was her own choice to "infect" her dd, but then you were impacted too.

However, in resposne to (Ithink) Twiglett, the thing about chickenpox is that you are most infectious before any spots show. That is why in Canada (I think), they recommend that kids aren't kept off nursery wehn they have chicek pox, on the grounds that they will already have passed on the infection.

So in defence of the "guilty" mother, her child might already have picked up the infection before she went to see the child with spots.

"My dads friend has set up a charity about this.

His ds caught Chciekn Pox and then got Leukemia as a result and died

He is trying to make parents aware that this getting kids together to get chicken pox out of the way is a very bad thing.
He is horrified everytime he hears about it.

So YANBU"

It's truly terrible what happened to your dad's friend's ds - a genuine tragedy, but mercifully a very rare and unusual tragedy.

Many minor illnesses can lead to life threatening complications in a tiny minority of cases - this is not a reason to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater', and it remains a sound principle to contract CP when young (and possibly therefore to willfully expose your children to it)

schmoopoo - just read your recent post

Can you not visit your friend without ds?

Agree YABU. I caught it from my sister having never been in touch with her whilst she was spotty. It's definitely contagious before the spots. My sister and I both had it as adults; I was pregnant at the time.

It is generally a much milder disease in children though I acknowledge that there are exceptions.

www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=97&sectionId=6

link above it what NHS Direct say about complications of chickenpox

YABU

Complications from chicken pox are EXTREMELY rare. Any viral infection carries the risk of complication, albeit a tiny one.

Your children are "lucky" to get it out of the way young. Both of mine have had it recently - DP got it when he was 29 and was really poorly.

Any setting that involved groups of young children have chicken pox ripping through them like wildfire. It's almost inevitable that your child will get them at some point.

very rare yes HMC but it can happen.

Scmoopoo - have you had chicken pox? If you have, you will be perfectly safe to visit your friend alone. It's a highly probable that your friend will have had it too. I think it's quite usual to reach adulthood without catching it

Actually, your little one won't be contagious by then anyway. They stop being contagious after the last crop of spots crust over, which took about 4 or 5 days when mine had it.

Sorry to hear about your friend

Chickenpox kills significantly more adults than children though so purposely avoiding it in childhood is not necessarily a good thing.

Found this:

"When can children return to school?

This has been a controversial issue for sure, but ought not to be. The latest word from the Canadian Pediatric Society, which restates it's 1994 recommendation (Can J Infect Dis 10;193-196, May/June 1999) is that children with mild varicella should be allowed to return to day care or school as soon as they feel well enough to participate normally in all activities, regardless of the state of the rash. Mild chicken pox is defined as having a low fever for a short period of time and fewer than 30 spots. Many of these children are 'well' by the second or third day of the illness and can participate in regular activities. The decision to return to school therefore should be based on individual facts and circumstances. As you indicated, many schools and day care centres still have strict exclusion policies that that keep children with varicella at home for 5 days after the rash appears (and some schools keep them home even longer, until the vesicles are completely dried). The reasoning behind the CPS position statement is that varicella is contagious from two days before the rash appears and is believed to be most infectious from 12 - 24 hours before the rash is recognized. Since the goal of exclusion is to protect other children from developing varicella, by the time the rash has appeared it is already too late to prevent the spread. "

That's usefull to know.
We are a plastered with spots household at the moment. Managed to spread it to my friends children before I knew. Probably infected dd's class too.
So I hope all the parents are gratefull for their present.

Scmoopoo, very sorry to hear about your friend and the problem it causes for going to visit. However, at least you know that the virus is in the area and can act accordingly. Even if that mother hadn't gone & got her child infected, it would be very likely that your kids would have been exposed by now anyway and you might have taken them up to vist your friend no knowing they were contagious.

I have some sympathy with the OP.

My friend's son (18m) nearly died from chicken pox. And I do mean nearly died, I am not exaggerating.

When my kids had it a friend asked me to come round so they could give it to hers. I refused. There was no way I was going to knowingly pass on a disease to anyone, having seen what my friend's son went through.

but chances are she would have caught chickenpox anyway,better to catch it young as it is less severe (as compared to being pg adult)