Don't shake hands with babies!

**psjkmom** · 10-01-2005, 03:08 PM

Reminders to practice good hand-washing habits are especially appropriate with flu and RSV season quickly approaching. I want to add another admonition. Please refrain from touching babies' hands unless you have just washed your own. Of course moms and caregivers will have to touch babies' hands frequently throughout their day. I'm addressing individuals who meet a baby for whom they are not responsible and grab the baby's hands in greetings. Babies put their hands in their mouths frequently and any germs on another's hands go right into their mouths too. I know those sweet, dimpled fingers are tough to resist, but anything you've touched (including the public restroom you just visited, the doorknob you recently turned, the shopping cart handle, etc.) will have germs on it that will go right into the child's mouth.

Young babies are especially vulnerable to RSV. It's a respiratory virus that attacts the lungs. It acts like a bad cold in older children and adults but can be deadly in young babies. My dd contracted RSV at 5 weeks and spent a difficult week in the hospital struggling for every breath. A week after she came home, another baby in our small town died from RSV. My dd is fine now and shows no signs of asthma or other chronic respiratory problems that survivors of RSV often face. Other children are not so fortunate. Unlike an infection that can be treated with anti-biotics RSV is a virus for which few treatments are available.

PLEASE remember that babies' immune systems aren't fully developed at birth and keep away from their hands. I'm probably "preaching to the choir" here at FV, but this is a timely health reminder that is heavy on my heart.

**Missy** · 10-01-2005, 03:46 PM

A good reminder especially as we enter cold and flu season!

**dndylfe** · 10-01-2005, 03:59 PM

Ohhhh, thank you for pointing this out!!!! Son number two will join us in a month and I dread taking him out! Son number one is hardly ever sick, except when we're around people who can't keep their germy hands off of him!!!! (He always comes back with a cold from cousins' houses).

I love, love when people love on my babies, but please refrain if anyone in your family's been sick. This kind of makes me seem germphobic, but for me the worst part of being a mom with regards to bodily fluids isn't dirty diapers or even projectile vomiting----I HATE a constantly runny nose. BLECH! A torrent of snot or the constant drip, drip, it doesn't matter, I hate it. And so I would do almost anything to avoid it.

btw, psjkmom, they have completed or are close to completing an RSV vaccination---son #1 was offered the trial run when he was born.

**SewCrafty** · 10-01-2005, 07:40 PM

Great advice ladies!

**psjkmom** · 10-01-2005, 09:26 PM

Dndylfe, you're correct that there is a vaccine, however, it is extremely expensive (or it was two years ago). Something like $800 per administration and it takes more than one. It has only been offered to at-risk babies (usually those who are premature). And, it is only effective before the virus is contracted. Does your dr offer it routinely? If so, perhaps the cost has come down and it is more readily available. How wonderful if it is. I would have paid anything to keep my dd from having to go through what she endured.

**krisathome** · 10-02-2005, 05:28 PM

My dks are all too old now but I do have some friends who's babies had RSV, nasty stuff! These little ones spent alot of time in and out of the hospital last year.

And thanks for the reminder!

**Shell** · 10-02-2005, 05:34 PM

My dd had RSV last Feb and we almost lost her. One of the worst times in my life. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it. Madison was very strong and healthy or she wouldn't have been so lucky. The other babies on the ward weren't as lucky as her.

**canadian gardener** · 10-02-2005, 05:38 PM

Oh Emily what a timely reminder!!! thankyou!!!!

For anyone struggling with auto immune problems, or cancer treatment, the very young and the very old

it's a killer to come into contact with "whatever is going around".

Handwashing is so simple and so important.

You are NOT germ a phobic one bit!!!!

When ds was little he had some health problems and caught stuff SO easily and people were so cavalier about it. Because he LOOKED healthy they ASSUMED he was.

And he wasn't. He spent a lot of time in hospital one year, and the worst was from the stupid and thoughtless woman who brought her sick kid over to play one day and said "oh she just has xxx but all the kids are going to get it anyway."

I was horrified but the damage was done. Ds spent over a week in the hospital after that episode.

I am bumping up my prevent colds and flus thread, but I'm going to put a link to this thread in there because I didn't even get into the very young and very vulnerable little persons.

And honestly people should know that most little guys are breeding some kind of something. Don't love them too close or you'll share! LOL my dad calls his grandchildren walking petri dishes!!!!

Think twice, once for the babies, and secondly for what they can share.

**psjkmom** · 10-02-2005, 10:39 PM

Shell, my baby was sick two Februarys ago and I still get teary thinking about it. She, too was a fat, healthy newborn and recovered well. It was a nightmare week. Something you never forget. That's why I started this thread. People who would never dream of harming a child inadvertantly spread this terrible virus. Has your little one had any problems with asthma?

**dndylfe** · 10-03-2005, 12:37 AM

Ahhh, sorry, the vaccine was being offered as a test or trial run so they actually paid us money to test it on him----That makes me sound really greedy, I know, but we were concerned about him getting it because both my husband and I worked in high contact-with-germy people jobs (a video store and library at the time).

And yes, they had to give him atleast two or three doses with a nurse checking up on him every week or so to make sure everything was alright. The company was hoping to make it more widely available and affordable, so I'm not sure that the new and improved has been officially released. Maybe this year? It was almost two years ago, I don't know how long trials usually run.