Worried my baby will get coldsore

[Eleanorgb]

Im panicking so much. My almost 8 month old was kissed by a family member today next to her lips and the person has definitely had cold sores before. (I didn’t notice they had one this time) I’ve mentioned the rules of no kissing a million times so you can imagine how annoyed I got. I’m just so so stressed incase my baby catches HSV - online it just speaks about how fatal it can be to babies and I know I’m not going to be able to settle for weeks, my anxiety had calmed down over the past couple of months and now I’m just back to been so anxious

Hi. I totally understand your fear but it is only contagious if the person has a cold sore. You would have noticed if they had. Talk to your health visitor who I’m sure will have lots of info and help you talk it through.

Until covid people were kissing babies all over the place. This no kissing thing ( for healthy babies) is a totally new thing, and baby deaths from it were extremely rare before. In the rare occasions they occurred, it was usually a newborn, and the kisser had a cold sore at the time. We knew about it because they made the news because they are THAT rare.

The chances of your baby getting ill at 8m from someone who didn't have a visible cold sore is so negligible that is basically zero. Your baby is at more risk from a thousand different things a day then this.

Surely your baby is at the age now where they are getting into mischief, constantly putting things in their mouth and generally trying to kill themselves. This is not even on the list of things to worry about.

I get cold sores and kissed my babies when I didn’t have them, none of them caught a cold sore from me. Hope that reassures you a bit

HSV can be particularly dangerous to babies 4 to 6 weeks. After 6 months it's not really considered dangerous anymore.

So your 8 month old should be fine even if they did get it. I think this is one of the things you can now scratch of your list to worry about.

Ofcourse anyone with an active cold sore shouldn't be kissing anyone, let alone a child.