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Strollerderby
Keeping hands clean is a big step in preventing the flu.
At my daughter’s appointment to get her stitches removed after a recent bedtime accident, our new-to-us pediatrician asked if we’d like to schedule a flu shot. My eyes widened while I explained that we don’t vaccinate.
Her face softened as she said, “Oh! That’s right!” And she kindly went on to remind me how to naturally keep the flu out of our home this flu season without vaccinating. Continue reading »
It was a year ago this week — the last week of school, for us — that the kids in my older daughter’s classroom started falling ill left and right with a strange stomach virus that included coughing and fever. It stood out because it was so unusual to see so many kids out that last week of school. Now I wonder if it wasn’t that early first wave of H1N1 going through.
Last spring was the first time we’d ever heard of novel influenza A (H1N1), as it’s officially called, also known as swine flu when it burst onto the scene in Mexico (though experts say it may have actually been born in the U.S.). There were several hot pockets around the country during the spring and summer, but the fall was when H1N1 hit the nation in earnest.
A lot of people might look at the anti-vax folks and wonder why it matters if those folks don’t get their kids vaccinated. If their kids get sick because they aren’t protected, it’s no skin off anyone else’s nose, right? Wrong. A new study shows exactly the opposite: vaccinating kids protects the entire community.
Have you been slathering yourself and your kids in hand sanitizer this winter? Most of us have. Those little bottles of alcohol-based gel have become ubiquitous. We find them at the grocery store where we go to grab a cart, at the movie theater when we go to grab a seat, near the doorway of any shopping center and installed in every classroom. In all, three quarters of Americans use six or more germ-killing products every day.
There’s good news for those of us who’ve been rolling our eyes at all the literal hand-wringing we’re expected to do over germs these days. According to a new article in Slate, all those products don’t work to stop the spread of colds and flus.
New evidence shows what health authorities have known all along – H1N1 is disproportionately hard on young adults and children.
Since April 2009, the pandemic flu virus has killed 17,000 Americans – far less than a typical flu season. But up to 13,000 of those were adults under 65, and 800 to 1,800 of them were children.
H1N1 infected, in all, up to 57 million people. Those numbers are based on computer modeling, since there’s no accurate way to count flu cases.
In a different study, researchers were surprised to discover a rare heart infection occurred in four children with H1N1 in less than a month.
Standing in line for the H1N1 shot last fall were parents, grandparents, and other caretakers of newborn infants.
Because there is no flu shot — H1N1 or seasonal — approved for infants under six months, and because infants are at high risk for complications if they do catch the flu, the next best thing is making sure that everyone around the infant is vaccinated.
But a new study out of the University of Washington, Seattle suggests that seasonal flu vaccines may be safely used in infants as young as six weeks old.
My head? It’s spinning.
As if it wasn’t enough to track down swine flu shots for the kids, trucking to different clinics depending on their ages, and then doing it all over again for the second shot as close to 21 days after the first as possible — all while reading conflicting reports about whether it’s actually necessary, whether this isn’t just a mild little bug, whether this whole Swine Flu/H1N1 thing isn’t just a big ol’ media event.
As if all that wasn’t enough, now there’s this: health officials are recalling 800,000 doses of the kids’ H1N1 vaccine. Continue reading »
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