Mindee with conjunctivitis

[star1976]

13 month old mindee turned up this morning and within a few minutes noticed that his left eye was red, then within half an hour there was a bit of gunk in it.

Cleaned it up and text mum who said that she had noticed in the morning and was going to get something from the chemist.

Do you accept children with conjunctivitis? Not so much of an issue today as only other child I had whilst he was here was older and playing other different toys so very little chance of cross infection (lots of hand washing going on and made sure eye was kept clean).

However if mindee still has it on Wednesday when the strike is on I will have a house full of children that all love playing with him so much harder to prevent cross infection.

What to do!?!?!?!

My DD had it last week and both her school and childminder were worried. I wanted to make sure all was ok so took her to dr who wrote a note to say she had mild conjunctivitis and was ok to go to school. He didn't even prescribe anything as he said usually the tear ducts alone can heal the infection. He also gave me the latest guidance notes that say it is ok for children to attend school or childcare settings, as long as there haven't been multiple outbreaks.

This is always good place to look www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb_C/1194947358374 unless in your policies you exclude then parents may be awkward about keeping home

As long as the child is receiving treatment (drops or cream etc) then I am happy to accept them, but I do keep a very close eye on them and make sure that they're washing their hands and not using someone else's towel etc.

Thank you, very helpful :)

there's no evidence for using drops/cream unless they've had it for 4-5 days as the majority are viral (think "eye snot") and will not require anything but bathing with cool boiled wate. The HPA link given above is very useful. a policy saying you'll only accept them if on treatment puts parents in a hard situation as any decent GP won't prescribe unless they've already bathed for 4-5 days and you can't buy treatment over the counter for children