Reply to Nervous about infant's exposure to family member with herpes

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Reply to "Nervous about infant's exposure to family member with herpes"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I can totally understand.  While it's very unlikely that genital herpes would spread from a person with very good hygiene in this manner, if your mom can't reliably wash her hands after touching her genitals, there is a tiny risk of spreading.  I'd ask your doctor if it's something to be very concerned about.  In general, what I'd do is just have the hard and fast rule that everyone who holds the baby has to wash their hands with soap immediately before picking him up.  We had that rule for our preemie and nobody was offended, as long as you make everyone do it.

Personally, my bigger worry was people with oral herpes.  One of my cousins had a cold sore and I had to ask her not to kiss him.  (I told her that we asked everyone not to kiss him.)  And then of course she kissed him -- numerous times -- and said she just forgot.  Luckily (so far) he doesn't seem to have gotten the herpes virus from her, but I finally had to say, "You have an open cold sore on your face.  That's the herpes virus.  I really cannot have you touching his face with an open herpes sore."  I'm sorry that I had to embarrass her that way but I was furious that she kept kissing him even when we asked her not to![/quote]

Good for you. How did she take it?[/quote]

PP here.  She was defensive -- basically said that everyone has cold sores and it's not a big deal.  I didn't point out that I'd never had a cold sore; I just said that the neonatologists said that it actually would be a very, very big deal for our preemie to get herpes and that I knew the last thing she would want to do is send him to the NICU again.  She didn't say anything again about it after that, and she also didn't kiss him again as far as I could see, but I know she was hurt and she didn't come back to visit for months.

The ironic thing is that she is the only member of my family who visited to help and was incredibly helpful and loving.  I had a c-section and a preemie in the NICU and she came when he was 6 weeks old and she saved my sanity for a week and let me sleep for an hour or two at a time, so I was incredibly grateful.  The last thing I wanted to do was drive her away, and I really couldn't fathom why she kept kissing him when I asked her not to, since she was so thoughtful and giving in every other way.  I think she really did poo-pooh the seriousness of oral herpes, since she's had cold sores for so long and just considers them normal.[/quote]

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