Slapped cheek in work.

[SnailorSwift]

I'm almost 8 weeks pregnant so very few people know in work.
I'm based in a school and have come in this morning to find one of our kids has slapped cheek. Although they are apparently no longer infectious I'm assuming there will be other kids with it as viruses spread at the drop of a hat in schools and the child was in school last week before the rash came up.

My manager has rang occupational health who have advised 'extra hand washing' and to avoid said child and their classmates but our children all travel together so it could easily have spread beyond that class.
My manager has told me to contact my GP too so I'm waiting to hear back from them.

Anyone any advice who's been in a similar situation? Should I be at home?

www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/pregnancy/what-are-the-risks-of-slapped-cheek-syndrome-during-pregnancy/ looks like you should get a blood test to check if you've had it before

Thanks @dementedpixie just off phone from GP who did a call back. Have booked me in for blood test tomorrow morning and advised to get in touch again if I develop and symptoms

I really don’t want to scare monger or frighten anyone but I suffered a MMC back in June. A week or so later my DD came out in a rash, her friend had had the rash a week or two before this as well. I found out about this the day before I went for my scan where I found that we had lost the baby.

Could’ve just been coincidence but I don’t think so. Definitely contact your GP and see wat course of action he suggests.

No don't worry @Iswallowtoothpaste I appreciate you sharing your experience.

I'm sorry about your loss 💕

Have spoken to manager won't be working directly with children until I've had my bloods back to check for immunity.

@SnailorSwift thank you, I feel as though I’d be doing a disservice if I wasn’t honest.

So pleased your manager is taking this seriously!

You are totally right @Iswallowtoothpaste. I'm so glad too.

My colleague is pregnant as well (but she doesn't know I am!) her GP is fitting her in for a test this afternoon or tomorrow and has said she shouldn't be back to work until she gets results due to risk of infection.
I'm assuming mine may say the same tomorrow.

I'm holed up in my office doing admin for the rest of the day so don't have to have any contact with kids.

Hi @snailorswift - I work in a nursery and 2 children got slapped cheek, I had to be moved to another setting whilst I waited for the results of my blood test. I really suggest you teach another class until you have the results back too. Sorry to be overwhelmingly negative here, but one of my friends had a miscarriage at 18 weeks, they did some tests and it was because of slapped cheek in the nursery in another instance. Another friend of mine had a baby critically ill with hydrops, extremely life threatening condition and he was born very poorly, they found no explanation but my friend had worked around slapped cheek in pregnancy and slapped cheek can cause hydrops too. Please please please take no risks. I know how hard it is, I was in the same position as you 8 weeks ago, and I felt like a total inconvenience to work, but until you have your bloods back, this really is a case of doing your best to have a healthy baby. So sorry to be so negative, but with 2 close friends having been effected, I felt it necessary to share xxxxx

@Babyno2mamabear thanks for sharing. I really appreciate hearing people's thoughts so please don't think you are being negative. It's helpful for me when I go back to my manager to be able to know as much as possible.

Thankfully this child is not in my class (I'm a therapist in a specialist school) so from that POV can easily avoid that individual I'm just concerned as to it having been caught by other children by now that we don't know about. I know it's fairly contagious and these things tend to spread like wildfire round school.

I absolutely will do what's best and safest for the baby though so if GP says no direct contact with the children until I get my results that's what I will do. I'm keeping a close eye on what my colleague is doing too in case her advice is any different.