chicken pox - ok for grandparents to babysit?

[minxthemanx]

DS2 has come out in a few chicken pox spots today (it's doing the rounds at nursery). I imagine there will be a rew more spots tomorrow. He's fine in himself, but I'm meant to be working this Wednesday and had booked Grandma to babysit - if they had chicken pox as a child, are they ok to be in contact with it? Why does shingles ring a bell?

They should be fine provided that their previous pox infection left them immune (fairly rarely it doesn't and those people can get it twice or more). If they have been in contact with people with chicken pox since they had it (their own children, for example) they should be immune.

Shingles isn't caused by contact with the virus. It happens when you have had chickenpox and some of the virus has been dormant in your body. The virus then "wakes up" (technical term ) as shingles.

HTH

That's great, thanks for the information.

My husband doesn't know if he's had chicken pox,should we look after our grandchild with chicken pox