Hi and Help,

[Mummyant]

My son came home from a morning at nursery today and when I changed him after his nap I discovered two scratches under his testicles, in a sort of separated V shape. No-one at nursery said anything to me and he didn't have any marks there before we left home this morning. I feel really upset that someone did this to him and did not let anyone know, I trust them to be careful with him. I'm going in to talk to them tomorrow but I'm really not sure how to approach this, should I put anything in writing or just talk to them at this stage???

so sorry to hear this - do talk to them, better to clear the air as soon as you can.
DD has a scratch on her bottom a few months ago, apparently a [long] nail scratch while she was wriggling / fighting the nappy change. I have asked if the nursery workers could keep short nails, but haven't seen it happen...

how old is he? is it possible he could have done it himself? i know my boys have managed to scratch themselves while having a play down there during nappy changes!!

i would just talk to them in the morning and ask them what happened

Sorry to hear about your little one you must have been cross, they're not allowed to have false nails at Cs nursery but I'm not sure whether they say anything about normal nails. I just wish they had been honest enough to tell me. They must have realised when it happened, he's two so he doesn't fight nappy changes anymore and it must have hurt because it's scraped the skin off and he complained about it at shower time and winced when I put cream on it. I don't think I would've been so upset if they told me, at least then it would seem more like they are concerned about hurting him instead of trying to look after themselves by saying nothing.

Most nurseries have a no skin to skin contact policy for toileting, to prevent cross contamination and assist with basic health and safety, hygeine proceedures. I would certainly raise this issue as a matter of urgency, ask and check what their policy is. Personally I use vinyl gloves, they are pretty thick and would be hard pushed to scratch skin with them on, especially to the extent where the scratch caused the level of discomfort that your poor DS is experiencing, I also find it odd that two seperate scratches on either side are their, as I would expect if a scratch appeared the person doing the nappy change would stop and see why / how it happened to make sure it was safe to continue rather than continue and cause another scratch IYSWIM.

false nails mean nothing, i wear fake ones and if i dont i rip my face to shreds in my sleep, fake ones are thicker so dont scratch.
do any of the staff wear rings?
although atworknnotworking did mention no skin to skin contact, i assume that means gloves. its worth asking really, were they even wearing gloves?