Will he get sick from poo?

[QS90]

Put two year old in "time out" in his cot for literally 5 mins for smacking, only to go up and discover he'd smeared sh*t over everything - his cot, the mattress, himself from top to toe... obviously bathed him straight away, using Dermol antimicrobial (he has sensitive skin), but my question is, is he likely to get sick?? He had rubbed it all over his face, in his eyes, probably in his mouth...

Poo is non toxic so he will be fine.

Poo is non toxic?! It isn't non bacterial, otherwise why would we need to wash our hands after doing one?

OP, I don't know for sure, but hopefully if he is, it will be short lived. My son ate soil once and puked it back up but was fine otherwise.

That is absolute rubbish.

Poo is minimally toxic as it is made of waste products from the body.

111 told me poo is non toxic when mine did similar.
He was of course absolutely fine.

It's his own poo - it's already been inside him. He'll be fine.

So why is a perforated bowel a medical emergency?

Honestly, the level of ignorance is unbelieveable. How many people would drink a nice gin and tonic with ice and a twist of poo?

2 million people a year die from diseases caused by faecal contamination of drinking water.

Because poo isn't meant to be in the abdominal cavity, only within the intestine. It doesn’t usually just float around inside you and then pop out your bum!

And a small child eating his own poo, is not going to be exposed to any faecal contamination other than any he already had.

Honestly, the level of ignorance is unbelievable...

His own poo is not a great risk to him, and it's unlikely he ingested much if at all.

Also, time-outs should always be supervised and a 2 year old should not be put in one for 5 minutes! If he had enough time and freedom to smear his poo everywhere, clearly something is wrong.

Don't be daft, of course you can leave a 2 year old unsupervised in his cot for 5 minutes. He was left in a safe place, and got hold of some poo that was in his nappy, not a carving knife.

So, is your mouth in your intestine, then?

Once poo leaves the intestine, it is a vector for many viral and bacterial diseases.

It's the same with stomach acid. Once it leaves the stomach, it causes all sorts of problems, usually heartburn, which can cause considerable damage to the esophagus.

Makes you wonder why we are not still crapping out of the window, 14th century style if poo is so benign.

Years ago I had to ring Guys Poison Unit about this.
They said that your own was fine to ingest but someone else's would not be.

Yes he can be left unsupervised but not as a punishment, especially for 5 minutes and how far do you have to be from him to not realise he's smearing poo everywhere?

Time Outs don’t work on 2 year olds

Would any of the people talking with such authority on this thread like to post their qualifications and/professional experience which allow them to do this?

Years ago when I started working in Childrens mental health provisions we had a child in our unit who would eat poo if given the opportunity; the resident medic gently told us all in training that if the child was going to ingest poo, the safest poo to ingest was his own, and a small amount would not cause serious harm however we should be diligent in not providing this opportunity.
I would hope a 2 year old wouldn’t ingest as much as this child could potentially, and should be ok.

This. He won't understand and you are establishing a 'bad' association with his bed.

Aside from that he will be fine - lots of kids mess with poo.

Thank-you those who have posted about the topic - some very interesting and helpful advice :) Will monitor him but won't expect the worst then. Could really do without illness alongside this awful heatwave!

As for the issue of time-outs, I have no quarms about leaving him in his cot (he sleeps there at night without me after all). He enjoys bed time and sleeps through 10 hours or more no problem. It is effective too, in that the threat of a time out stops him belting me or other children for the most part, which is of course the goal 👍

He will soon stop enjoying bedtime when he associates it with the time out, which he won't understand.

One of mine did this when she was little. I phoned 111 and they said she would be fine, and she was. Strangely they asked whether the poo was more than two weeks old, to which I obviously replied that no, it was fresh. Apparently that was fine but eating old poo was not fine 😂

@JudithHarper - If you can't see the glaring gap of logic in your argument, I can't point it out to you.

For example, people now have faecal transplants - other people's faeces in their digestive tract. The digestive tract. Not outside of the digestive tract in the abdominal cavity, which cannot handle faeces and hence the infection.

@LaingsAcidTab Faecal transplants are an experimental procedure and there are numerous cases of infections occuring because of them and, sadly, some deaths. This is all carried out under medical supervision. People are not advised to take 2 spoonfuls of poo after eating.

I have looked into the subject but I cannot find a single qualified medical professional that states that eating your own poo is totally harmless and that eating it is recommended. There are many weasel words eg 'should be safe', 'unlikely to cause harm', 'will probably be OK if you eat poo'.

If you are happy eating your own waste, knock yourself out, but I think you would be dining alone.

Then I'll defer to your knowledge on this matter, @JudithHarper .

You say 5 minutes but I find that hard to believe, the poor child was clearly in distress amd went on a poo protest! Would take longer than 5 minutes cry for a bit, shit, take clothes off, smear shit all over fave and body and cot. You're doing something wrong here...

And also, using where child sleeps as a punishment tool is wrong aswell.