What should you do if your child comes down with one of these popular schoolyard bugs? Read on to find out what they are?
1. Flu (both seasonal and swine flu)
What it is: This year, moms will have to watch out for both seasonal and H1N1 flus. They’re just different strains of the influenza virus, but the H1N1 virus seems to target young adults (under 25) and children, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says.
“The seasonal flu changes a little bit year after year so our immune systems are pretty good at recognizing it and destroying it,” Horowitz says. But we don’t have the defenses to deal with H1N1.
Both viruses may cause fever, muscle aches, joint pain, cough, fatigue, stuffy/runny nose, sore throat and other amplified cold symptoms. (Less common are dizziness and vomiting.)
The diseases spread through airborne droplets when infected people sneeze or cough without covering their mouths or if they touch a contaminated surface. The respiratory droplets can travel three to four feet in the air and live for several hours outside the body.
2. Lice
What it is: Many moms know the embarrassment of having their child sent home from school because of these sesame-seed-sized mites.
Lice travel from head to head by crawling, so you can’t get them from a few feet away, says pediatrician Ari Brown, M.D., co-author of Baby 411 (Windsor Peak) and a spokesperson for the Texas Medical Association.
Instead, they spread when children share hats, brushes, combs, headphones, bedding, towels, stuffed animals, car seats and sofa cushions. The creepy-crawly critters can live only about a day or two off the head.
They may cause itching, but “lice won’t cause disease or make you sick,” Tolcher says.
3. Chickenpox
What it is: Caused by a virus in the herpes family, chickenpox may initially produce symptoms like fever, headache, stomachache and loss of appetite a day or so before small, red spots crop up on the face, torso and other body parts.
Thanks to the varicella vaccine (which your child should get at 12-15 months and again at 4-6 years) “about 8-9 of every 10 people who are vaccinated are completely protected from chickenpox,” according to the CDC. If vaccinated children get the illness, it’s usually a mild version — “like 50 lesions instead of 350 — and doesn’t cause complications, hospitalizations or deaths,” Brown says.
Chickenpox spreads through direct contact and virus-laden droplets that become airborne when an infected child coughs or sneezes.
4. Pink eye
What it is: This eye infection (known more formally as conjunctivitis) occurs when a virus or bacteria causes inflammation of the thin, mucus membrane that covers the eyeball. Your child’s peepers will get pink and itchy; the bacterial kind also causes goopy discharge.
Pink eye is spread by hand contact.
“If you touch the same things that another person with pink eye touches, like doorknobs, desk tops or faucets, or hold hands with them and then touch your eyes,” you can get the disease, Tolcher says. Germs can live on such non-living surfaces for up to a week.
5. Impetigo
What it is: Impetigo is a superficial skin infection caused when staph or strep bacteria enter the body through broken skin — like small cuts, scrapes, chickenpox or bug bites.
“It usually begins as a small red patch or a pimple, which spreads to a larger honey-crusted sore,” Greene says. It can also spread under the skin and pop up in other parts of the body by fingers, clothes or towels.
Children spread impetigo by touching the area or sharing cups, utensils or straws. Some, but not all, forms of impetigo present blisters, swollen glands and itching.
6. Cold sores
What are they: Also known as fever blisters, cold sores are viral infections and appear around the mouth.
“Cold sores can affect anyone who has had a prior herpes infection (up to a third of children have by the time they grow up),” Greene says.
They spread by direct contact through kissing or sharing cups, straws or utensils, Wechsler says.
Tingling and itching is common.
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