Sent your kid to daycare or school sick? You’re not alone

Body Language is our wellbeing column, examining trending issues in diet, health and fitness.

I don’t feel good about it, but we’ve all done it, right? With more than 61 per cent of Australians mothers in the workforce, the opposing pressures in our lives make it virtually impossible not to buckle at some point and send a child who is not well out among other people.

I say, not without shame, that I have sent my daughter to daycare knowing she was still probably not quite well enough, knowing she would be the one contributing to the petri dish that has infected her so many times this year, knowing that other parents would feel the same frustration I have felt, wishing that for everyone’s sake the contaminated kid was bloody well kept home for a couple of days.

Sick but still sent them to school? You’re not the only one.Credit:iStock

And yet … We weigh up our civic duty and our parental duty against our need to earn a living and sometimes work wins.

In her first year at daycare, there have been times my daughter was seemingly home sick more than she was there. I have juggled work, I skipped work, I have done half days and have changed around days (not a luxury all mums have – and I say "mums" because although it is not fair, mums are 10 times more likely to take time off work to stay home with sick kids).

Occasionally, however, I have had to put work first and cross my fingers she will be OK and not make other kids sick. There’s a necessary degree of denial in that and I’m not the only one who’s doing it.

He was coughing up a lung and looked really crook. He shouldn’t have been there and now [my daughter] is sick.”

Just this morning, I bumped into a stressed friend who feels like she is dropping balls at work because her little girl is home sick from daycare again. “I’m really annoyed,” she said, “because as I was dropping her off the other day, a dad was dropping off his son who sounded like he was coughing up a lung and looked really crook. He shouldn’t have been there and now [my daughter] is sick.”

So when, exactly, do you know you won't be infecting anyone when you sent a sick child back to day-care? Sanjaya Senanayake is an infectious diseases physician and a lecturer at the Australian National University Medical School. He says you can’t always tell: “It varies depending on the type of infection. Kids tend to excrete a bit longer than adults.”

While adults and children with common colds and flu are most infectious during the first five days of the illness, kids will often “continue excreting it” for two weeks, even after they seem well.

“Kids are often the ones who keep influenza outbreaks going,” Senanayake explains. “The flu virus will survive on hard surfaces like stainless steel and plastic for about 24 hours anyway so if that child touches everything at their daycare centre and then goes home for 24 hours, they’ve potentially left all the infectious particles behind to be touched and picked up.”

As a general rule, he says, if it’s the first few days of the illness and they have symptoms, like a runny nose, they “probably” are going to infect people. “If they’ve got a bad cold and cough and you can, keep them home for four days to help them fully recover and take them through the most infectious period for other kids,” he advises.

With gastro, it depends what the virus is, Senanayake says.

“Usually by the time the diarrhoea has settled the amount of infection is very low and if there’s good hygiene practice, it shouldn’t really spread.”

Good hygiene is also important for hand, foot and mouth because though they are infectious only while the blisters have fluid in them, their faeces remains infected for a couple of weeks.

We shouldn’t feel too bad because children are going to be exposed to infections at daycare … and it will help to develop their immune system.

As for rashes, while they are typically not infectious in themselves, they represent an infectious process in the body.

“In a sense, it’s literally a red flag, so the rash may not be infectious but everything else about that child is,” Senanayake says.

It’s good information to have, though the reality for many working parents, myself included, is that we quite literally can’t afford to take five days off work every time our child is sick.

Senanayake acknowledges the different pressures influencing the decisions we make. It’s trying to use common sense and, as much as we can, trying not to perpetuate the petri dish spread.

When we can’t though, we shouldn’t feel too bad, he says, because regardless, children are going to be exposed to infections at daycare and school and, for the most part, it ultimately will help to develop their immune system.

“It’s getting parents to think about is my child sick, should I keep them home for a while longer,” Senanayake says. “At the same time, it may not be the worst thing in the world, if they’re feeling a bit better, to send them earlier.”

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