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Spread the love, not the germs
Someone should have warned me about the rotavirus.
All of those parenting books I read in preparation of becoming a parent didn’t prepare me for the viscous stomach virus that plagues young children. It has paid a visit to my two-year-old son five times in his short life, including three rounds in two months last spring. It spreads through contact with contaminated food and surfaces. Basically, bad hygiene.
Chances are if your toddler or preschooler is in contact with other children, he or she has experienced rotavirus gastroenteritis, which is a fancy way of saying vomiting and diarrhea. No place is safe: My two nieces and nephew all got it recently when they went to Disney World. (Not quite the souvenir they were hoping for.) All four grandchildren (my son included) passed it back and forth to one another like a game of Hot Potato last spring at Abuela’s house. The virus also made its way around my son’s day care in December.
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved a rotavirus vaccine for infants up to eight months old. My son’s pediatrician says there’s talk of making the vaccine available to older children.
In the meantime, I’ve got an easier, less expensive solution – wash your hands regularly! Both friends and family have accused me of being freakishly worried about keeping my son’s hands clean. I carry hand-sanitizing liquid everywhere I go and stock up on antibacterial wipes as if they were a staple of hurricane supplies. (In fact, I just reached for the Purell that sits on my desk.)
Of course, all the tubs of Purell and Wet Ones in the world couldn’t have done any good during my son’s first visit to Disney World in November: As we waited in line for the ride “It’s a Small World,” I looked down at my son and saw him licking the handrail. Didn’t find that in a parenting book either!
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Comments
I don't know about too much vaccines and excessive hygiene.
Viruses can also easily mutate and the vaccines will end up useless. They have findings in dogs - excessive vaccination - lowers resistance to diseases.
One thing parents are taking for granted is breast feeding. Colostrum - the first type of milk that comes out of women's breast after giving birth -is one of the best way to promote healthier babies.
Posted by: ns | February 23, 2007 1:19 PM
Summer camp season is approaching and as a parent and physician, we are getting our children ready to go away for a few weeks to sleep away camp. There is a free service for parents with children going to summer camp with medical problems, conditions, medications and allergies. It is a free service and allows parents to easily set up a record of their child's medications, allergies or problems..so that if, while at camp, they were to get sick, this information would either be immediately accessible by camp nurses via the internet or the child can carry it with them in their wallet.
In a true emergency this information would be invaluable, particulary with the number of increasing medical errors, medication cross reactions and inadvertent allergic medical reactions. Having information at your fingertips for your child and his camp nurses, is critically important. All parents in this situation should take advantage of this preventive free service at http://www.CampMedic.com
Posted by: Steven Hacker, MD | February 25, 2007 7:19 AM
Please STOP with the antibacterial soaps/sanitizers!!!
People are doing more harm than good. Just wash your hands with regular soap!
I understand the "emergency" times of using hand sanitizers but there is a serious problem with over use.
The real problem are the vast majority of people/parents that are not "clean" and thus the rest of us have to suffer.
People have to also understand stomach flu virus which I also have been unforutanelty acustomed to due to a relatives child from day care (nurmerous time I might add), will happen regardless. Just as with the flu vaccine you still can get the flu.
Was all those incidents was it the rotavirus, nobody can be sure, and in most instances it was not. Even with the rotavirus vaccine, children will get the stomach virus.
Posted by: SFN | March 14, 2007 3:03 PM