to take my chicken poxed child out?

[Chickenpoxmama]

Dh thinks I was so I want to know what you think.

My toddler has Chicken pox - spots appeared Tuesday. Dh did two days working at home and now I've taken leave. The days dh did at home I was able to take older child to school but dh couldn't do that today because of getting in to work. So I put toddler in pushchair and took her, keeping well away from everybody. (dh fine with that bit) then we proceeded to a nearby supermarket to buy a few bits - newspaper for me, chocolate buttons for toddler, stuff to make older child's birthday cake, fruit, fresh bread. The supermarket was nearly empty, toddler in pushchair at all times, I kept at least 2 feet and mostly 3 feet away from people. I didn't go to the deli counter because there was an elderly couple there just in case and I asked the checkout lady if she'd had CP before handing her the magazine toddler held all the way round. She had. Toddler is not coughing or sneezing and obviously I didn't let her touch anything or anybody except her magazine (which she is so thrilled with ) So aibu?

che - I rather doubt that there is anything I can say that will not have some posters lining up to hurl further accusations of brutishness at me but I do want to respond to you and say I have read your daughter's story before and the sufferings she had are dreadful, I am not indifferent at all to that. I just don't think our behaviour today put anybody at additional risk. Others disagree with me.

I am not trying to emotionally manipulate anyone here CPmama. I can only relate truthfully what happened to us. My DD's infection could have been caused by an unknowing person. It could have been caused by someone just popping out for fags. I will never know.

Of course the chances of you individually putting anyone at risk are slight. But I am looking at the general trend of many people taking that indiviual risk.

I can only logically add up to an increased risk to vunerable people.

Personally I would not take the chance. If anyone ever asks me if they should I can only truthfully tell them [imo] they should not.

I do kind of disagree with you chicken, but I agree that you probably weren't responsible for too much additional risk, certainly compared to children who go to school/nursery and sit next to others before they have any symptoms. And I also think that you are a very easy target. How satisfying it is to pile in and 'YABU' the person who allowed her DC to do that. And yes, I might look askance at the child covered in chickenpoxy spots. But I also feel, to my own discomfort, that it is so much easier and self-righteous to do that, of a rainy Friday, than confront the issue of whether there should be a vaccination programme for CP (I know the NHS guidance quoted here disagrees and maybe its right but it is clear even from the histories here that for some it can be devastating). And whilst we're on the NHS guidance that someone was so kind as to quote, what about the guidance for other childhood diseases with potentially dangerous consequences? Do we all follow that? Oops no - let's not go there!- so much easier to flame the OP than think about the risk posed to the immunosuppressed by children unvaccinated for other contagious diseases. Lets avoid the uncomfortable, the sensitive and the controversial. Note that I'm not taking any position and I would never seek to influence anyone, but I suggest that in 'cordoning off' this aspect of the spread of contagious diseases and its consequences, and setting our sights only on 'safe' (and admittedly self-nominated - you should have known better OP!) we are having a very facile and lazy debate and avoiding some uncomfortable truths.

sorry - 'safe targets'

My God, chickenpoxmama, I can see why you namechanged.

Ffs.

Heartless.

Oooops. Well apparently Im an evil lady then, I didnt realise it was that bad, and took my 2 yr old to the zoo with it

The vaccine debate has been done loads of times, bellissima. Not sure anyone is really shying away from it. I'm far more interested in a debate on whether or not the vaccination programme is the right thing to do.

Given that vaccination doesn't eradicate the disease and you will never reach 100% vaccination unless it is compulsory, which it won't be, in my eyes it just eliminates the more effective immunisation which comes from the actual disease and leaves those who can't be vaxed open to very serious infection in adulthood.

I am also interested in a debate about quarantining. I suspect if children were not quarantined at all, then almost all people (given the current 89% rate) would have immunity by the time they reached adolescence which would be a better situation for people who become immuno-suppressed later in life as they will have had chickenpox.

The thing is Bellissima, Chickenpoxmama asked the question 'Am I being unreasonable to take my chicken poxed child out', not a question about vaccination programmes. I quoted the NHS guidelines on the 'stay at home' policy, because you had said their wasn't one, and I just wanted to point out that the main source of health of advice tells people to stay at home if they have chicken pox.

Chickenpoxmama, you keep saying you were careful, but unless you put a message out over the tannoy system that you were about to enter the shop with a child with chicken pox, then I don't know how could have known who was going to be stood next to you in the queue, working on the checkout, around the next corner, etc, because it could have been someone having chemo, or with suppressed immunity or in the early/late stages of pregnancy.

Since you ask Bellissima, yes I do follow the DOH guidelines on infectious diseases and yes it pisses me off when vomiting kids are sent back to school a day after they've finished puking. So whilst you choose to ignore the advice (I'm assuming that you do from the wording of your post), don't assume that everyone else does in an attempt to validate your own attitude.

This is not about vaccination. It's about current advice, based on current research and evidence.

After reading this really felt the need to add a contribution.

First off all, of course you YABU and I'm pretty sure you know this by now. My dd developed the spots yesterday and my DH who is a transplant patient is now in having emergency treatment to hopefully prevent him developing as he has no immunity to it and I'm on antiviral drugs as I never had it as a child. Just take a moment to look at the consequences of chicken pox in the immuno-compromised and pregnant. And as for the comment on your poor little one not having been outside, I'm starting to think you must be a troll because sure we have all been through the cabin fever of childhood illness but that's part of parenting - get over it and get the paints, play doh, baking, cbeebies out.
If you could experience one second of the anxiety we are currently going through (and I hope to goodness you or any other posters do not have to) then you would see this completely differently.

Oh and Bellissima - can't quite see how you have concluded from this debate that people are not willing to discuss other potential health issues , it's just Chicken Pox is the one in question. As for the vaccine - yes again very interesting point but it still doesn't take away the face that from what we know and current advice, just be considerate and keeping CP little ones at home wherever possible.

Also, sorry Che for not having acknowledged your posting - at the moment we are only on red alert for a potential problem at that is worrying enough. I cannot begin to imagine what you are going through and it makes some of these later postings all the more infuriating. It doesn't matter that its a small risk - its something over which you have control and is an inconvenience which if you endure is potentially life saving.

To answer your point about chicken pox 'always being present', and thinking that what you did hadn't increased the risk at all - before you went into that Waitrose, the virus might have been present in the atmosphere from someone yet to develop symptoms - but after you arrived there, the virus definately was present - can you honestly not see the difference??

Great point StayingDavidTennantsGirl - that is exactly the issue.

do what you need to do, but don't make everyone cross and worried about stuff by posting on here about it. YABU, no more unreasonable than lots of people I am sure, goodness knows cabin fever makes people go a bit mad, but just keep quiet and make your own decision about unreasonableness. Unless you have another child who might get it and you want to know for future reference.

i didnt realise it was that dangerous to pregnant women even if they've already had it. but then i suppose thats why people make a fuss, because who HASN'T had chicken pox, apart from unborn children! i should listen more...
you learn something new everyday!
i think maybe you were being a teeny tiny bit unreasonable, but as unreasonable goes, you went out of your way to stay out of people's way and asking the checkout woman, as a former checkout girl, thank you!
you are the good kind of unreasonable.

Selfish, unecessary and unreasonable.

The bit I don't get is how the OP could know beforehand that her toddler wasn't going to sneeze or cough in the supermarket. Bit of luck that she didn't. But hardly very predictable.

When dd caught chickenpox, we didn't know the source.

Haven't read the whole thread so this might have been said already - the supermarket was bad enough but letting your ill DC handle a magazine all the way around (what on earth for? For a bit of peace and quiet for yourself?) and then giving it to the checkout woman to scan? That magazine is bound to have had some droplets on it. What if the next person along was immunosupressed - tiny possibility I know, and most money is germ ridden but really, why on earth be so selfish? I presume you have just never seen the effects of CP on an immunosupressed person and think a bit of illness won't do anyone any harm. Medicines that supress the immune system such as steroids don't say in big letters, stay away with people from CP and shingles just for the hell of it.

I had chicken pox when I 16 weeks pg - it was nasty as the gp and consultant couldn't tell me whether my baby would be born normal - a child with chicken pox had given it to me when they where in the shop I was working in - was the mother resnable to bring a child into the shop with CP?

I suffered weeks of not knowing - is that resnable

TBH I think that mother was a right cow and caused me so much upset due to her selfish attitude

I lost a friend, who had been successfully battling cancer for years, because he caught chicken pox from one of his children's friends. He died within a week, leaving three small children.

Could you bear it if you caused this? You were cavalier and thoughtless. You say you were careful which is better than not being, but far better still not to go.

We all need to take care of the potential harm we could do to others and accept minor inconveniences to ourselves to protect others. That's how the world works best.

Chesgirl - so sorry to hear your story .

op, you posted that "I was also keen to get her some fresh air and what daylight there is - poor kid has been inside for three days" as your reasoning behind it being ok to take her out. you've already posted that she'd been out on the school run, and tbh, being in for 3 days is not that long really.

so yes, yabu, but i think you know that now!

Sassybeast - I certainly don't ignore health advice, which you would be aware of had you read my posts. I kept my DCs in last year as soon as I was aware that they had CP. I was embarrassed that they had been in public before they got spots, when they were contagious. I am well aware how dangerous CP can be to the immunosuppressed - a boy at my nephew's school is undergoing cancer treatment and all pupils have been made aware that they must, must not come in should they have measles, CP, rubella etc. Unfortunately these things are contagious before symptoms appear. For the other illnesses vaccines are available and I have followed health advice, as has my sister, so that there is no chance (or very very little - yes I know vaccines are sometimes not 100% effective - neither are medicines) that my nephew could unwittingly transmit those to this boy. If a vaccine were available for CP I would have taken advantage of it I promise you. As other posters have indicated, not only is there no childhood vaccine for CP here but many medical professionals and HVs give the impression that CP is largely benign. It was only in another country that I was tested when PG and given full information on the possible adverse effects of catching it if not immune. Maybe the message seems to be spread here - I would certainly support that. But please don't ever accuse me of not caring about the risks to certain groups of people from allowing my DCs to wander around with CP or to wander around unvaccinated for other diseases where the health guidelines indicate that they should be vaccinated. You really are flaming the wrong person.

Haven't managed to read through the whole thread, but YAB incredibly U. I sadly know this through personal experience.

I contracted chickenpox just over a fortnight ago and I was just over 11wks pregnant. I sadly miscarried due to the chickenpox. Even if pregnant mums have immunity to chickenpox, they can still get it again. Believe me, I had my immunity tested because I knew I had been exposed (DD came down with it on Boxing Day) and it came back positive, yet I STILL contracted chickenpox and 4 separate doctors have confirmed that chickenpox can be contracted more than once. Chickenpox is also highly infectious, therefore, no matter how careful you are there is still a risk.

Please, please do not take your child out until you are sure that she is no longer infectious, which is once the spots all crust over. Please also accept my apologies if you think I'm being very blunt, but I hope you understand that there could be severe consequences to your actions.

Selfish, irresponsible and unnnecessary. And of course you weren't being careful, being careful would have been staying in and getting your shopping in the evening. Just a case of not caring about what happens to anyone else I'm afraid and I think you know that or you wouldn't have posed the question in the first place.