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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not want my newborn touched by the residents of a care home?

177 replies

motherbeyond · 07/07/2010 14:13

ok,i know it sounds mean...but yestrday,whilst i was visiting my gran with my 3 dc,youngest being 7 weeks, a carer asked if she could show the baby to the residents.

i felt i had to say yes.

i watched as she walked round the room with him.

fair enough,i know everyone loves a baby,and it would brighten their day,but she was letting thm touch his face and kiss him!!yuk!

i was getting very hot and bothered and eventually she handed him back.

the thing is,i know the other day my own gran had an 'awful exprience'which involved poo,and i noticed she had some on her cardi...so god knows what they've got on their hands/clothes.

am going to say no next time and i know they'll think i'm a cow...so,aibu?

OP posts:
colditz · 07/07/2010 15:40

Nursing who?

Most nurses who work in hospitals haven't a clue about elderly care, judging by the state of people when they come out of hospital!

BigGreenBin · 07/07/2010 15:45

I began nursing in a nursing home , and worked in several. I have worked in nhs care homes, private care homes, nhs hospitals and now a private hospital. Is that enough for you?

I do know all about care of the elderly and I know how much they love seeing babies as well as pat dogs which visit.

I also am fully aware of what one can and cannot catch in such places. BUT I would be sensible about it. Certainly the personal hygeine in various places differ, but I would and have taken all my dc into the workplace to meet patients and residents. They are all fine.

Original poster
motherbeyond · 07/07/2010 15:49

"We will all be sitting around the dayroom one day wishing we knew how to turn the darts match off the television, feeling the humiliation of not being able to look after oneself, and longing for a baby's cheering presence.
"
getorfmoiland..i'm afraid i'll be booking a one way ticket to switzerland.my gran is always telling me she's lived long enough and wants it to end.

colditz also agree with you re this..gran recently had a fall and had to go to hospital...not a good experience for her,made worse by the nursing staff. the ones at the home are infinitely more competant from what i witnessed

OP posts:
Morloth · 07/07/2010 15:49

DS2 has been pawed over by young and old from birth. He is in extreme good health as is DS1 who was also passed around.

Most old people love little babies. Babies like to be smiled at a stroked, which is good because people like to smile at them and stroke them. Anyone would think that this was how it should be or something!

Chill out.

Sassybeast · 07/07/2010 15:50

Colditz - since when has 'cellulitus' been contagious ?

Morloth · 07/07/2010 15:54

Well my mum has it and now I do.

BigGreenBin · 07/07/2010 15:55

colditz - it is cellulitis btw

Morloth · 07/07/2010 15:56

Oh hang on is different from cellulite, sorry, as you were.

BigGreenBin · 07/07/2010 15:57

One can get the bacteria from cellulitis if there are open sores and could potentially get the same. But the chances are slim with good hygeine.

colditz · 07/07/2010 15:58

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulitis

Yes, you're right about the spelling. My spell checker didn't recognise either so I guessed.

colditz · 07/07/2010 16:00

FWIW I took my babies in too, to see the lift on the resident's faces - BUT as a member of staff, you KNOW who might have had their hand up their bum 30 seconds ago, you KNOW who has Hepatitis, and you KNOW who washes their hands properly and who doesn't, so your child can be appropriately shield/handed round.

This is information you don't have as a visitor.

BigGreenBin · 07/07/2010 16:02

Exactly colditz - as was the case this time. A carer took her baby round.

frankie3 · 07/07/2010 16:04

YANBU. You have a right to feel like this about your baby. I know that it would light up the day for the residents to have contact witht the baby, but it was not your choice to have your baby used for "show and tell".

I know everyone here feels very strongly abouth this and will think I am cruel. But my grandma is in a home and her fellow residents are all lovely people and I always chat to them. They are often lonely, without their own famililes coming to visit often. But the home is not always that clean, with urine on the floor of the toilets etc and a lot of the residents are unwell.

So, as you have a 4 month old baby you have a right to fell like this, it does not mean that you are unfeeling.

ArseHolio · 07/07/2010 16:05

Biggreenbin, would you give your newborn
child a big hug in the uniform you'd just worked 12 hours in ?

I won't go near my kids in work clothes, I have a shower before they even see me.

Nursing homes and hospitals are, with the best will in the world, dirty places.

Not somewhere for a newborn even if it does make someones day.

SusanCalvin · 07/07/2010 16:09

"I took my DS to see my gran when she was in a nursing home. Somehow holding him seemed to make her Alzheimer's (sp?) fall away - she was so good with him"

Yes, I took my first baby to see GMIL who had Alzheimers. She was holding her, and MIL was fussing around telling her to be careful when GMIL said sternly "I do know how to look after babies, having had two of my own"

nellie12 · 07/07/2010 16:11

Yanbu. there is no reason why a 7week opld has to be passed around like that. Fine if you're fine with it but if not then thats fine.

Fwiw as a nurse when I come home I dont touch the kids till I've changed. I know where I've been. So theres no chance of them being passed round a nursing home.

BoffinMum · 07/07/2010 16:14

A baby is not a toy or a pet for other people's entertainment or amusement. It is a human being, and newborn babies need to be near their mums and kept away from unexpected germs until such time as their immune systems have adapted. Institutions such as hospitals, schools and care home are full of complex cocktails of bugs you would not normally get in a domestic context, and for that reason parents should minimise the time their tiny babies spend in such environments. People's feelings should not come into it, nor should political correctness or arguments about ageism. There is time enough for children to visit care homes to cheer up elderly relatives and their friends later on, when they have got a bit more biologically independent of their domestic environment.

BoffinMum · 07/07/2010 16:15

On a more flippant note, I am also reminded of the fact that Mary Queen of Scots kicked up a big fuss at her newborn son's baptism and refused to allow the priest to spit in his mouth, as was the practice in those days! We've come a long way ...

Happybutknackered · 07/07/2010 16:15

YANBU motherbeyond. I would also be uncomfortable with this too if it was my newborn. Yes kids do need to be exposed to germs to build up their immunity but newborns - like the elderly and infirm - are vulnerable to infections. Lack of proper handwashing is the biggest cause of cross-infection.

Morloth · 07/07/2010 16:18

So how does this newborn exclusion zone work if you have more than one child/an extended family?

Happybutknackered · 07/07/2010 16:19

Totally agree with Boffinmum

BoffinMum · 07/07/2010 16:20

Family will share a lot of the usual bugs, but institutions have more of the unexpected things in a confined space so should be approached with more caution, IMO.

Loads of extended family in a confined space fussing over a tiny baby would probably be very daunting for the baby and not a great idea as well.

Morloth · 07/07/2010 16:24

Not in my experience.

oldmum42 · 07/07/2010 16:26

YANBU - a new baby is vunerable to many infections which may not make an older baby/child very ill, but which could make a few-weeks-old baby very very unwell indeed.

Old people (especially in a crowded environment like a care home or hospital) are important "vectors" for many of these illnesses- for example chickenpox (old people are more suseptable to the "reactivation" of their childhood chicken pox - Shingles, and that is how the disease spreads from generation to generation), C.diff and other similar diseases spread in poo are common and may be undiagnosed in large numbers of care home/hospital residents, and are often very poorly dealt with where there is an outbreak. These diseases spread very easily in these environments - a new baby could be at vary serious risk if they picked up one of these infections.

It is a very different thing to hand a baby over to great-granny only, than to hand a baby round a ward/day room to a group of people who are all living in a ward/care home setting. Hospitals/care homes dealing with the elderly have real problems with infection control as the patients are ill, frail and vunerable.

Of course from a social point of view, the residents would have loved it and it would be very good FOR THEM to see/kiss/fuss over a new baby, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for the baby!

I think the OP's instincts are telling her something here - a baby that young should not be passed round lots of strangers- a mothers milk will have antibodies to the diseases she (and very likely, her close friends and family) have had, but strangers may be carrying "novel" bugs that the mother has no immunity to, and these pose more of the threat to the baby - and that instinct is valid - not at all being un reasonable IMO

Note - peronal experience of several years, grandmothers stays in hospital, and nursing homes, and drDH experience regarding infection issues in these settings back up what I have said - I am not being "anti-old", I am being anti the way many old people are being treated.

I will now stand back and prepare to be flamed.......

Morloth · 07/07/2010 16:32

There are more than 6 billion humans on the planet, newborns simply cannot be that delicate.

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