Taking Babies on Walks Safe?

[SLMater]

Hello,

I wanted to canvas opinion as to whether I should intervene and say something to my friend about the fact she is still is taking her five-month-old baby out for a walk everyday in London despite the Coronavirus lockdown.

She has a large house and garden, no other children (so she's not accompanying older kids to the park or anything) and a husband she could leave the baby with if she felt she still wanted to take the risk and go out for a walk. Instead, she insists on taking the baby with her every day.

I am a parent myself of teenage offspring, so I have been there and I do sympathise with people who have toddlers/young children and are living in a flat without a garden who need to burn off some steam. But to take a small innocent baby outside who has no say in the matter just seems unnecessarily selfish.

Studies have proven the virus is airborne, can stay in the air for up to three hours, is worse in urban areas, attaches to air pollution and can be spread by people jogging as far as five metres away. It's surely no coincidence that the U.K. tragically has one of the highest death counts per capita in the world when the government is still allowing people to go out every day to shops and parks? (By comparison, in Greece, for instance, people have to text the local police station for permission to leave the house for any reason whatsoever and, as a result, there have been only 150 deaths from Covid 19.)

I feel so worried that my friend keeps putting her baby at risk like this. I've sent her articles on studies about the dangers of going out, which she seemingly has chosen to ignore. Do you think I should say something more direct to her or do I just have to stand back and watch her do this?

Thanks for your thoughts!

You need to get a grip

It's absolutely fine! I'm sure it does her and the baby good. In the extremely unlikely event that the baby caught the virus from its daily walk there's a 99.9999% chance the baby will be just fine. Stop being so silly.

The only reason I don't take my baby out every day is because I'm worried about catching it myself as I'm vulnerable. And I'm lazy. All the evidence suggests babies are at a very small risk and I don't think there have been any fatalities in the UK (and only maybe a handful globally) - presumably her baby is in a pram or carrier which acts as a bit of a shield in any event. Good for her for getting out every day! I asked a doctor friend who is in maternity leave at the moment what she was doing and she goes out for a daily walk with her 6 month old.

Mind your own business she’s not violating any rules.

My brother has a baby a similar age and I’d be more concerned if they weren’t taking him for a walk each day. Sometimes, their baby even goes out twice a day - shock! Once with mum, once with dad. Means they both get an hour in the house completely alone in the peace and quiet. I think that is really important for new parents (actually, it’s important for all parents, but I’m struggling to remember the last time I was alone in the house, it was probably the last day of school).

She’s doing nothing wrong. Please, please mind your own business. I’d probably tolerate a friend sending me one article about it, any more than that and I’d quietly cut contact.

@Starduststatic literally laughing at the ‘licking’ comment! Thanks for my laugh today

Given it is also perfectly safe, if not recommended, I'd also assume that any links you're sending her are of very dubious provenance.

I take my five month old out every day come rain or shine. I think you should concentrate on resolving your own anxieties around this and leave your friend to do what she is happy doing.

YABVU.

You are overreacting - I know you are worried for her but if you research it, the risk to babies is extremely low.
If one of my friends kept sending me articles about it, I would kindly tell her to stop, it’s actually quite insulting.

It is good for baby and mother to get out for some fresh air, physically and mentally.
I take my nearly 8 month old out every other day for a 45 min walk in the carrier, she loves it and so do I. It is good for us both.

I took my baby to the supermarket in a sling this week. She's breastfed, so if I get infected out on a walk on my own she will be infected anyway and the risk to babies is miniscule.

I'm more worried about her getting the measles as she's not yet had MMR. The measles are far more likely to kill your friend's baby than Covid.

NO YOU SHOULD NOT SAY ANYTHING TO HER HTH

I'd be blocking you if you were my "friend" doing that to me.

Going out for walks is very, very low risk for catching Covid.

Going out for walks is good for mental health. Especially if you are stuck in the groundhog day life with a young baby. Especially at the moment when there is minimal social support.

Going out is good for baby's development. For their depth perception. For their observations. (At 6m, from DS1 sitting up in the pram, he took a lot of interest in watching everything around him). It also helps a lot of babies sleep better.

Bullying a mum into staying in for no good reasons would be an excellent way to trigger depression or anxiety, which lasts a lot longer than the majority of young, healthy people's experiences of Covid.

I’ve got a 6 week old & Ive taken her out for a walk every day since lockdown along with my 3 year old. I’d go absolutely insane indoors. I have a modest house & small but pleasant garden. The chances of catching this from walking in the fresh air at 2m apart is incredibly small. It’s more likely I’ll pick up the virus doing my weekly shop & pass it to my baby.

Do I worry about my newborn getting it? Yes, a little. But no more than I’d worry about her getting a cold, regular flu or some other illness she’d commonly be exposed to in normal life. Thankfully children are at very low risk to all this.

Also, it’s 100% not true it ‘hangs’ in the air for up to 3 hours. We’d all have caught it by now if that was the case! It’s not some alien like virus. Its a coronavirus much like all other corinaviruses. If you cough & sneeze, you expel it into the air & gravity pulls the virus to the ground where it will die.

Leave your friend alone, she is doing nothing wrong at all. Stop projecting your health anxiety on her & suggesting she’s a bad parent!

You do realise that the baby could catch it from your friend being outside, right?

She’s doing nothing wrong and it’s not your place to judge or question her.

Stop reading studies when it's really clear you have no understanding of them. Stop harassing your friend.

Air moves and will dissapate most risk in fresh air, she has more risk of her and her baby being hit by a car in way to walk.

No way, I'd go absolutely nuts if a friend started on at me about this.

For a start, the baby will be low risk, and a walk and a change of scene will do it good

You sound like you need help with your anxiety OP. Very not normal and very unfair of you to be projecting your anxiety on to your friend.

I'd be seriously annoyed if my friend behaved like you! She's completely in the right, it's fine to take a baby for a walk!

My three month old has spent half his life in lockdown. If I didn’t go out for walks with him every day I’d be in a very bad place - it’s crap enough that he can’t see his grandparents, aunties and uncles, that the health visitor doesn’t come to check his measurements any more, that we can’t go to baby groups or the library, or to anywhere other than the neighbourhood park. It’s rubbish.

Objectively, it’s much worse for parents of older children and I appreciate that I am lucky to have a house & Netflix and all of that. But this is not remotely what I imagined my child’s first months of life to be like and a daily walk is a small respite from the grim reality. Leave your friend alone.

You are being totally ridiculous.

You sending her the articles is probably causing her more harm and anxiety then her daily walks, which are good for her physical and mental well being.

I know you mean well, but stop. Life is full of risks, and she’s got to decide herself what risks to take. People die in car accidents every day, doesn’t stop us driving.

I didn’t imagine this post would attract such intense hostility and vitriol, much of which is deeply hurtful, but I take all the comments on board and will make no mention of my concerns to my friend. I have known her for 25 years and we chat most days; I genuinely only have hers and her baby’s best interests at heart.

Given how severe the pandemic is in this country, especially in London where we both live, and since I personally know children who have been very sick with Covid-19 and two adults who have died from it, I do not think my reaction is ‘deranged’. Parks in London are very crowded and it is almost impossible to practice safe social distancing. In just one street in the London borough of Newham, for instance, 22 people have died of Covid-19.

I would have taken no risks whatsoever with my own baby - however infinitesimal the odds of catching the virus from being near others in the park - and would simply gone for a walk alone, leaving the baby with its father, if I had really felt the need to get some head space, then come back and, before picking up the baby again, showered thoroughly - just as my doctor friends have been doing when they get home from their hospital shifts on Covid wards/ICUs before contact with their own children.

The articles I mentioned came from reputable British newspapers and were part of a broader group chat about the virus, so there was no implied criticism of my friend’s parenting; it was just information for her to reflect on.

I suppose my concern was heightened by this week’s reports (i.e. BBC) that have highlighted the emergence in the U.K. of a dangerous coronavirus-like illness in children. Let us hope it does not become more widespread and that the worst of the pandemic will be over soon.

I would have taken no risks whatsoever with my own baby - however infinitesimal the odds of catching the virus from being near others in the park - and would simply gone for a walk alone, leaving the baby with its father, if I had really felt the need to get some head space, then come back and, before picking up the baby again, showered thoroughly - just as my doctor friends have been doing when they get home from their hospital shifts on Covid wards/ICUs before contact with their own children

And you are well within your rights to make that decision... for your own children. Just as your friend is within her rights to make her own decisions for her child.
Presuming you think your friend is a fairly intelligent woman, don’t you think it’s likely she knows the risks, has weighed them up and has made her decision based on that? In which case what good is sending articles going to do? Honestly I’d be livid at a ‘friend’ doing this to me, it suggests you think you are far more informed and intelligent than she is.