Friend kissed my baby, feeling upset

[Lurkinmn]

A friend came to visit me and asked if she can take the baby. Baby is 16 weeks old, I gave her the baby and she did a quick peck on my baby's cheek. I was shocked that why would she kiss other people's baby. I was upset and when she left I wiped my baby's face but I am feeling quite upset about her inconsiderate behaviour putting my baby's health risk. Baby has been fussy last night and I am feeling quite worried about my baby's health. Baby has all her vaccines so far.
What should I do and what should I say to her and other visitors coming to our place to see baby?

Is it irrational when we tell pregnant women to avoid bagged salad, cleaning products and berate them for a watered down glass of wine with Christmas dinner for some to then struggle to see any small risk as anything other than a potential disaster when a baby is born?

A good mother is a neurotic mother, or so the modern parenting standards suggest.

Yes, I feel a lot of compassion for the children as well as the adult suffering from irrational anxiety.

To not have kissed your own baby on the cheek yet does make you sound a little unhinged. My mum get cold sores and has before she had me, I asked and she kissed me on the cheek as a baby. When you think of it, probably half of the population get cold sores or carry the herpes virus, and nothing really happens. In fact, you're risking your baby's health by not exposing her to germs, meaning she will get far sicker than your oldest. They need to exposed to germs and things for their immune system. You really, really are not doing your baby any favours by wrapping them up in cotton wool. Do you get any counselling or therapy to deal with your germ anxiety?

I think this post is not real.

If it is, OP, please seek professional help. It will be much more damaging to your child to grow up around your anxiety than being exposed to germs.

I've never met anyone who doesn't kiss their own babies face (of course not if you are sick or have a cold sore).

How sad no one has given your baby a kiss. What do you think will happen? Unless your all riddled with cold sores and other illnesses then it's fine!!

She kissed her on the cheek?? There's nothing wrong with that!

A friend of mine has just become a grandmother for the first time.
They were sent a list of rules some weeks before the baby was born.
They have not been allowed to visit yet (baby is 2 weeks old and no health concerns). When they do visit (a 3 hr drive away) they've been told they can only stay for 20 minutes and are not allowed to kiss the baby.

Apparently some of this advice came from the MW, but it's been nearly 16 years since I had any MW contact so I don't know if their recommendations have changed.

I wonder if mn start them when things are a bit slow 😆

Of course! It's perfectly normal to kiss babies. Hard not too, tbh.

Absolutely ridiculous. Kids are going to end up with such weak immune systems.

Bullshit. Who doesn't smother their baby with kisses!!!

Totally agree!!!

Kiss your baby now, baby needs lots of kisses. Kisses from you will make babies stronger.

I agree there is definitely a risk, anyone with a young baby should already be aware of this, but it seems like maybe your friend was unaware of this? Perhaps mention next time that you’re not kissing the baby yourselves until they’re quite a bit older as although maybe rare there are very serious complications that can happen like rsv, physical and mental disability if someone with a cold sore kisses them (YouTube if you feel up to it, what happened to one little baby was terrible and easily avoidable) and you have every right not to want to risk it with your child.

I absolutely don’t think people should be kissing your baby without asking first but I suppose it’s dependent on your relationship and I’m sure your friend would never mean to harm your baby so I’d take a gentle approach to educating them.

Babies do not need kisses, they have no concept of what a kiss is until they’re taught, people need to get a grip here. Snuggles
and smiles are absolutely fine at this age.

Gosh, I have kissed relative's babies all the time!

No one things anything of it.

OMG, that is so sad.
Let’s hope they won’t be the parents in a year or so, who are complaining that grandparents aren’t willing to help with regular childcare.

Where did all this uber-preciousness about new babies come from? All this crap about the ‘little family’ needing time to bond, no visitors for ages, etc.?

I love how people on this thread are putting the feelings of fully grown adults over a baby’s safety. Absolutely shocking.

No I don’t, and people shouldn’t kiss babies that aren’t their own. But it’s happened now. Being fussy last night was likely just your baby being a baby! But of course I’d kiss my own baby!!

You re not just a worried mum. You clearly have significant health anxiety and you should seek treatment as it’s affecting your day to day life and will likely be affecting your children as you transmit that anxiety on.

I've accidentally kissed my best friend's baby on the head before - it was just a reflex action on holding a sweet baby that I cared about. I did apologise and she didn't care.

There's been lots of recent publicity about the risks of kissing newborns, since Annabel Karmel very sadly lost a baby to an infection that arose from kissing. It has also filtered onto instagram and tiktok. However, I think the risk of something bad happening to a young baby because a healthy-seeming person kissed them is low on an individual.

At 16 weeks it won't be that long before the baby is crawling around and trying to put all kinds of things in their mouth anyway, so might be good to deal with any anxiety over this now.

I wouldn't bother, if I were them. A 6 hour round-trip for 20 minutes visit is mad.

Does she have her own kids? Does she know you're not supposed to? I actually did this when my first friend had a baby... I didn't know it wasn't the done thing! But I wouldn't have been offended if they HAD said, and I'd never do it now.

I had a friend who was obsessive about germs and bacteria and basically bleached her house every morning once the kids had gone to school. They had to get changed when they came home so she could boil their clothes. It was endless and it was before Covid. Her kids couldn’t play outside hardly. By the time her eldest was about five she was in and out of hospital with immune issues and sickness. The doctors begged her to allow the kids to do normal kids things and come into contact with normal germs. She wouldn’t. It was horrendous. OP you need support. Also it’s bloody sad not to have kissed your baby.

I have a similar age baby and if it’s not a close friend I’d probably feel a bit awkward if they kissed him. I even understand your health anxiety to some extent, as you don’t know what germs they’re carrying and looking after a sick baby is hard.

But you and your family should definitely kiss the baby. You’re all sharing the same germs anyway by living together/ meeting often. You are all missing out, it’s great for the baby to be shown affection and kissing those squishy baby cheeks is one of the best things about having a baby 🙂