Help Chicken Poxs Scare!!!

[purplepoet20]

So far my boys haven't gotten them... all their friends that they played with that day got them. After the baby is older I may take all of them to a poxs party because I don't want them to get them as adults.

[Sunset]

No offense, but if you're gonna take your kids to a chicken pox party and help the disease spread on then please remember to keep them at home from the very moment they have been exposed to the moment all the blisters have scabbed over (usually 4 weeks) and don't wait for the blisters to appear. Chicken pox has a long incubation period and is infectious even before the blisters appear so your children might come in contact with a young baby, pregnant woman who is not immune to chicken pox (like I was) or a person with a low immune system even before the blisters appear and it is not fair to take that chance because you don't want them to catch it as adults. Chicken pox is incredibly infectious so even being in a large room with someone infected for more than 15 minutes can result in the disease being passed on. I have no idea where I caught chicken pox from as I was never in contact with someone 'visibly' infected, but at some point I was exposed to it and it caused for alot of worry, extra medical exams, uncertainty and bitterness in my pregnancy.. My daughter could have been born with severe birth defects because i got infected while i was pregnant with her, it's not something I could ever risk happening to someone else 9 out of 10 adults are immune to chicken pox so I am pretty certain that at some point your children will naturally come in contact with the disease even if you choose not to take them to a "pox party". Where I live the government had to come out with warnings against pox parties last summer as it caused a chicken pox pandemic in my area. It makes me wonder if me getting infected could have been avoided if parents didn't intentionally take their kids to these parties and let them get exposed to the disease and then send them to school the next day and only keep them home after the appearance of blisters (at which point they will have been infectious for days and passed the disease on to lots of other kids/people who would then be unaware that they've been exposed and it all becomes a vicious cycle)... i don't mean to have a go at you or anything so don't take this the wrong way, I just believe alot of people aren't aware just how dangerous chicken pox can be to certain groups of people and it's important that we do our best to try and shield the vulnarable from getting poorly. There is very much a reason why you would be placed in a separate room to other people in an A&E department if you had chicken pox, the complications for someone with a low immune system could be very dangerous.

[purplepoet20]

I am more aware then you think...
1. My aunt got when she was 32 and 7mths pregnant. The baby was a premiee and had tons of issues but she lived. But my aunt spent 6mths in the hospital and lost both her legs above the knees and 1 arm close to the elbow. She passed away 15y's later from heart failure because her heart, kidney's, and liver were affected by it as well.
2. Two of my male cousins were 12 and 13 when they got it and it caused them to become infertile. They may have been young but since they were entering puberty when they got sick they can not have children.
3. My youngest sister was vaccinated but she got it at 13 1/2yo and it caused some major breathing problems that she still lives with.


My DS1 starts school in 2013 and if he doesn't bring it home by the end of the 2014 school year I am choosing to expose my kids to kids of families I know. So they could be sick during the summer. As a parent I have the right to expose on kids while they are young so they do not get it as adults. I am not going to order stuff from the mail from complete strangers, I am not going to go to a poxs party with people I don't know, and I am not going to be stupid about how my kids are exposed.


I am not a stupid person who is going to expose people to something without their knowing!

[Justjessica]

I can understand why you would be worried about your kids getting it when they are older.

I read the other week that one of the reasons why they don't really advise chicken pox parties any more is that in some cases of chicken pox rare complications can arise such as pneumonia,sceptacemia and meningitis. So whilst you are exposing them to the chicken pox you just have no idea how the disease will play out for your kids. Most kids will have a very mild illness and be fine. As someone who has had shingles which is the same virus and developed meningitis as a complication, it was not a lot of fun to be in hospital so long and be seriously ill from something that should have been relatively minor. I still suffer from debilitating headaches now years and years later.

Everyone has the right to do what they think is in their kids' best interest. I just know I would feel really bad if my kid developed a complication and I knew I'd deliberately exposed them to it. Equally you might feel bad if you didn't and they got it later in life and it was worse. Each to their own!