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

[motherbeyond]

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?

nwborns are more susseptable to illness though,as oldmum advises,thy have no immune system this young...it is luck or the fact that new mums are protective of them if they don't pick up anything.

i was going to take ds into visit gran the day after he was born and the midwife said "please don't!!"sh was quite alarmed.
dh wouldn't have been happy either

(sorry,my 2 year old has been messing with the keyboard so certain letters don't work!!)

morloth, there may be 6 billion of us, but thousands of young children die every day of disease and illness caused by a lack of knowlege on spread/treatment - the species may be doing just fine but that doesn't mean individual babies will survive exposure to, for example, C.diff or N.F., both big players in the nursing home/hospital (elderly care)wards. These are not normal everyday domestic bugs, they are potential killers. I know I'd rather not take that risk with my baby.

yabu

YANBU. it is your baby and not a toy.

When I have my baby in September I am not having visitors for two weeks. Last time my SIL brought round their Nan who has altzheimers and she had a rip roaring chest infection. My baby was 3 days old. I dont blame the Nan but i was furious with dick head SIL.

I dont like people in public places touching my new born babies either. In the hospital, the staff have the courtesy to wash their hands before they pick up a new born. Members of the public dont.

Its an unecessary risk.

Newborns do have immune systems but not geared to the modern age, and large groups of people they and their families don't know.

We have too many people on this planet, and add to that our love of piling people into cities and institutions as well, and we have a formula for making diseases rife. We should have a lot more respect for our biology instead of being lily livered and politically correct about it.

newbons do have immune systems. It's not a good idea to challenge them with things like MRSA or Hepatitis

"Somehow holding him seemed to make her Alzheimer's (sp?) fall away"
yes we had this with my grandma, she was so bad she didn't recognise anyone, couldn't feed herself or really make conversation, yet when she held my DS she seemed to instinctively cuddle him in - she even tried to give him his dummy when it came out.
He overtook her in ability stakes at about 6 months

And yet I still think OP - yaNbu.

my bolding didn't work

I know what the OP means. I had it worse as when my DD1 was a couple of months old my mum had to go into a 'mental' hospital as she was having a very bad manic attack due to her manic depression.
On the second visit, mum insisted that I let a woman hold my daughter and I just would not let any of them near her.
I did not know what they were in for, if they were safe and one of the women kept following me around as she was in for severe PND and had tried to kill her child .
Any further visits that year were without DD1

You are - a bit. But you're allowed to be, you're the mum of a newborn. Your job is to protect you little one - full stop. F* everyone else's opinion frankly.

Yes, and the places smell of wee and the general atmosphere is unhygienic. Sad but true.

YANBU

I wouldn't be comfortable with my NB being passed around like that.

If you go to the developing world, newborns ARE hidden away from much of the world for the first few months, precisely because they are so vulnerable to germs. It is totally different handing a baby over to a grandparent, to being passed around over a large group of people.

i know stealthpolarbear but according to some,a bit of someone elses wee and poo are no bad thing

think i'll let my DCs decide that for themselves, like when they go to nursery

indeed stealth ....and speaking of which,i also ask my dd to wash her hands before she touches the baby,if she has been at nursery

Sorry to go on Colditz but you can't 'catch' cellulitis from another person - it's caused when normal skin flora get into the body and for various reasons, cause inflammation and infection - but you can't CATCH it from someone else.

Morloth - alas, I can only blame my cellulite on chocolate and not enough exercise.

OP, I think you are a 'little' bit U, but can understand your concerns. However, the pictures painted on this thread of some of the nursing and care homes that people work in/have visited are bloody depressing and I feel like I should say that they're not ALL like that!

I'm sure they're not Sassy but they certainly seem to be all like that round here - we've moved Grandma a couple of times and still not happy with her current one

I think yab a bit u Op, but should be let off because it's difficult not to be paranoid about germs when you have very young baby!

I admit to being very very over the top about PFB (friends say I dettoxed them on arrival..) and somewhat more.. er.. relaxed (slack) by the time DC4 arrived!

Bit of a tangent but when I had DC3, I was working at a residential resource for people with learning difficulties and behavioural issues-I took her in a few times when she was tiny, she was cooed over,cuddled a lot and in one case dribbled on-(I wiped it off and she survived!)-but I supervised closely and knew all the residents well so was completely comfortable and what they got out of it, and how gentle and nurturing they were with her was wonderful!

Anyway, you're as likely, if not more so, to pick up germs at your average toddler group in my opinion!!

Have the people who say she is being U ever been in an EMI ward or residential home? Not picking a fight, genuine question.

I've worked in both. Why do you ask ?

YANBU. Very good post from BoffinMum.

Just wondering if people who say the OP is unreasonable actually know what they're talking about - obviously you do I'm by nature precious, but have forced myself to relax, and am happy for any old lady/man in the supermarket to stroke DD's cheek etc, and in fact I let the wasp man hold her the other day (but was sufficiently traumatised to start a thread in AIBU ). From the time she could sit unaided she was plonked on the grass / sand / woodchippings and I'm quite relaxed about her eating the odd blade of grass / worm. Yet I really could not let her loose in one of these places, she's on my knee or grandma's. They really are grim I don't like it, I hate that elderly people who probably used to be very dignified live in them but it doesn't change the fact I don't want my baby crawling in there.

YANBU. Never mind germs etc (I never really think about things like that) but he is your new baby, your hormones are screaming out for you to protect him and nature makes you feel that way for a good reason.
I nearly decked a woman who leaned into the pram and touched my week-old DD1.
It may not be 100% rational, or kind or fair to the oldies, but it is totally normal.