State of the Amy

[pne]

Yesterday evening, Amy was at 37.6 °C (99.7 °F), which is a bit elevated but no cause for concern... still, it was higher than in the morning, which made it seem as if all was not over yet.

And this morning, she was at 38.5 °C (101.3 °F)—which I'd say counts as fever, though not a temperature high enough to require antipyretics, IMO. But she has an appointment with the pædiatrician this morning anyway; see what she says. (She'll probably draw blood.)

Stella wonders whether Amy might have become infected from a child which came to playgroup on Monday with fever and bronchitis, and found it a little irresponsible of the mother to have taken her child there in such a condition.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hope she gets better soon. Having been offline for most of the past couple days, I didn't find out she was ill til I heard she was doing better... I'm sorry to hear she seems to not be done with it yet. I feel so sorry for babies and very young children when they're sick, because I figure they don't understand why they feel so badly as much as an older person can. *lots of good wishes for her*

[pne.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Leora.

And I agree that small children probably have a harder time of it because they can't understand what's happening and why Mummy can't "make it better".

[tianamalla.livejournal.com]

That sucks :( Some people are so irresponsible.

[jc.livejournal.com]

It's as if nurseries are God's gift to infection. I'm sorry Amy caught something.

Oh, and if it were my journal, I wouldn't be cutting such a short entry based on who wouldn't care to read it. Is that who your journal's for? :)

[conuly]

That's because they *are* God's gift to infection and disease. Even if your kid isn't showing symptoms yet, they're all contagious with *something*, and none of them cover their mouths or wash their hands, and they chew all over their toys... Ick.

[karen2205]

I'd say if she seems unhappy & still has a slight fever keep giving her the ibuprofen - regardless of what her temperature actually is. It won't do her any harm and it'll probably make her more comfortable.

Other things - make sure she's not too hot when she's put in her cot, keep an eye on her nappies ie. are there the normal number of wet ones, she might like a tepid bath - alternatively she might hate it - you know your daughter!

She'll be OK - getting an infection/virus now means she's building up her immunity for the future. She won't remember this. I know when I was aged about 3 or so, people used to hold chicken pox parties to deliberately expose kids to the virus so we'd get it over and done with before we went to school. I, of course, managed to avoid catching it until I was 15 and my sister - aged 6, gave it to me.

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

I would not have wanted to get chicken pox when I was 15. Almost any of those "childhood diseases" are way worse to get when you're older than when you're younger. (Viz. mumps, which are a nuisance when you're 4 but a possible cause of sterilisation when you're 24.)

There's actually a vaccine against chicken pox that's now becoming more widespread, so it'll be gone soon, too. (My current lot — aged 7 to 12 now — all got it about 5 years ago, so at least that's out of the way.)

As for building up immunity, did you ever hear of the best explanation for the nastiness of the 1950's North American polio outbreaks? The idea was that, due to improved public health, there wasn't as much effluent in the everyday environment; so kids weren't exposed to polio virus as much post-war as they would have been pre-war, so they weren't getting that kind of "natural immunisation", so a whole bunch of them were susceptible. Even cleanliness and hygiene has its drawbacks!

[conuly]

Prior to that, polio had been considered a rich person's disease, hadn't it? Because they lived in cleaner homes.

chicken pox immunisation

[pne.livejournal.com]

There's actually a vaccine against chicken pox that's now becoming more widespread

The STIKO (http://www.rki.de/cln_006/nn_226862/DE/Content/Infekt/Impfen/impfen__node.html__nnn=true) (permanent commission on immunisation?) in Germany recommends getting vaccinated against chicken pox for children aged 11 to 14 months, so probably more and more children will be getting vaccinated routinely in Germany as well.

(Pædiatricians tend to follow the STIKO's recommendations in recommending vaccinations to children; in fact, our pædiatrician said that while she personally wasn't convinced of the necessity she had to recommend it in her professional capacity due to the STIKO recommendation.)

[swelegant.livejournal.com]

Oh the poor thing :( I hope she gets better soon!

*big hugs*

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Poor little pookie!

If I were Stella, I'd go kick that woman's ass. It's like the parents who send their kids to school sick - they just spread it around and make everyone miserable!

[jane-a.livejournal.com]

everyone cares silleh :)

hope she gets better soon, give her a cuddle from her auntie jane :)

[it0376.livejournal.com]

I really hope that she gets better very very soon.

[allegrox.livejournal.com]

It's good to know she's improving, even though I wasn't around to know what was going on before.

I agree that the mother does seem rather irrisponsible. That reminds me, though, of the doctor I had who always said when I got something from school that I should take it back where I got it.

[robnorth.livejournal.com]

It's pretty normal for the temp to roller-coaster while she's ill and while she recovers. As others said, just keep up with the ibu (I still prefer acetaminophen for babies, but that's more because I'm used to it than anything else ... they didn't have pædiatric ibu for most of my baby-parenting career) as and when needed. If she's cranky, give her some; if not, don't worry about it.

Even a wet facecloth draped over her head will help cool her down and feel better. Of course, she might hate it; otoh, she might love it, or if she's feverish to the point of lethargy she won't care enough to take it off.

As for infections from playgroups/daycare/school, that's life. Best not to bring a child there if they're infected, but (a) some parents are gits, and (b) sometimes the kid's contagious and it's not obvious. (Some of my kids would just be cranky for no apparent reason, and only a day or two later did we realise they were sick.) Not too much you can do about it.

(Although I did read an interesting story on cnn.com a couple of years ago. It was suggested that every kid in the US be inoculated against flu. It would cost about $1G a year, but it was estimated that by reducing the number of flus brought home by schoolchildren, lost time and productivity caused by the parents getting sick amounted to about $5G a year. Tempting....)

[sovereigna.livejournal.com]

<---- deleted post that might make you worry :S ---->

She'll be fine, just get a blood test done to be sure. Sending warm fuzzy feeling via telepathy.. and I have it on good authority that they travel faster than the speed of light, so she should be starting to feel the power of my warm fuzzies... any second now.. :)