Chickenpox etiquette

[Mamabear04]

DD has come out in chickenpox type spots today. 99% sure it is chickenpox. Obviously will call her nursery on Monday morning and keep her absent from 5 days from today. Just wondering about chickenpox etiquette...

Can I take DD to the shops with me?

Can I take DD to the playpark?

Can she see GP who are in their late 60s with no serious underlying health conditions - will they be at risk of shingles?

How long before I can visit a friend with a newborn? (DD won't be with me but may have DS who has never had it/might have it but not showing any spots)

How long before it's safe to visit a friend with cancer?

And some advice...

What can I do if DS (7 months) gets it? Should I call the GP?

Can I do anything to help? I ran to the chemist tonight and got antihistamine and lotion for DD. Should I start giving her these when she wakes up in the morning? She's 3 years old.

Anything else I should know? Obviously planning to avoid places like soft play, swimming, play cafes etc.

@lopsees I can echo this , first dc got chicken pox at 2 and was quite unwell but overall fine really , second child got it a couple of years later at 2 also and was extremely ill, it wasn’t at all the typical pathway of illness like the first experience with chicken pox ,v I’ll before , spots appeared and still v ill, he still extremely sick after they broke out everywhere (despite everyone thinking the worst is over then , it wasn’t at all) he was very unwell for a good month and I was so worried , he has quite a bit of scarring now 😢 Im in Ireland and the chicken pox vaccine isn’t routine or part of the schedule and it was a few years ago now but I’d never even heard you could get it privately. I definitely would have gotten it done privately for all of mine if I’d have known, for my 3rd I did as I was aware how bad it can be.
It can be a lot more severe than people think. I felt so bad for my little boy , he suffered a lot with it. It’s definitely not a minor illness for everyone and tbh I would be totally freaked at seeing a dc with visible spots out and about , tbh I wouldn’t care if they’d scabbed over or what stage. I wouldn’t dream of going near people with it.
Op I bf my babies and although they were unknowingly exposed they never caught it while being breastfed, once I stopped theydid get it (obviously not my 3rd who was vaccinated).

So I totally get staying away from vulnerable people and being considered in where to go. DD is definitely past the infectious stage and while I agree I need to be careful with DS (just to be clear I won't take him to playpark, shops, other households etc) at what point do am I able to just go about as normal? He's definitely been exposed to CP but like surely every kid is going to get it at some point right? Just wondering because personally all through covid I was super cautious and considerate because DH has an autoimmune disease but we still all ended up getting it anyway. Surely with CP every other kid is going to be exposed to it at some point whether at soft play, nursery or school?

That's really quick for her to be over it already if it only started on Friday.

I would avoid vulnerable people. Or places where they will be lots of newborn babies.

Other than that, go ahead as usual.

Of course there are kids spreading it all over the place. But the fact that you know you could be harboring it makes it different. Morally. That's all.

Please stay home. I know someone who was 32 weeks pregnant who caught chickenpox and had not had it before and had a stillbirth. Is it really worth exposing someone unknowingly? its not that long to have to quarantine at home!

Are you 100% sure? I am not in the UK, but when I called the clinic about my own baby, I was told “You can get your baby vaccinated against chickenpox right away even if they are under the standard age IF a doctor examines your eldest and confirms that she has genuine chickenpox pustules” on the grounds that the baby is going to be exposed to chickenpox one way or another once it is in the house, and it is safer for a baby to get the vaccine than to be exposed to full blown chickenpox.

It’s probably too late for the OP by now, though, in any case.

My personal view is that a) countries which have the CP vaccine as standard are doing fine and there is no more shingles than in the UK; b) if old people in the UK want to avoid shingles, it is in any case their responsibility to get the shingles vaccine, not my child’s responsibility to act as a crust-covered living-and-breathing viral vector; c) the fact that people simultaneously are being told to “avoid spreading CP” AND that “well, CP needs to spread in order to lower shingles” makes no sense and betrays the fact that the UK’s decision not to bother with CP vaccination is almost certainly down to costs and the aftermath of the Wakefield scandal.

One friend of mine forgot to get her child vaccinated, and feels terrible about it now because her child has a bunch of badly located scars on his face and it looks quite bad. I simply don’t understand why anyone who can afford the price of the vaccine would put their child through this.

Oh, that's awful! I had a pregnancy planning health check and the nurse tested to see whether I needed to be vaccinated for anything. I was mainly checking for Rubella as I hadn't been vaccinated but turned out I had caught it naturally. What surprised me was that I wasn't immune to CP so was vaccinated before I tried conceive.

My gp told me when dd had them last year that she can go wherever she likes because most kids have had them and only to keep away from nursery but fine to go to shops/park