Is there anything more stressful than a pediatrician’s waiting room – when you and your child are only there for a routine check-up?
I can’t help but feel uneasy…
Even though my kid’s doctor’s office has a section of the waiting room reserved for sick kids and another area for otherwise healthy patients, we all know just how easy it is for toddlers to run around and pass on their germs.
AND the fact that studies have shown that when “well” children visit the doctor for a routine exam or vaccination, they have a higher risk of developing flu-like symptoms within the next two weeks.
Thankfully now, the American Academy of Pediatrics has come to the party and finally updated its guidelines for doctors’ offices.
The guidelines which hasn’t been updated since 2007, recommends that even private practices should have the same standard of hygiene and infection control as hospitals.
In addition to recommending that all healthcare personnel — including receptionists — should receive the flu vaccine, the academy made one key advisement that will either have parents relieved or slightly annoyed:
Cross contamination could occur from toys, books, and computers, among other fomites in the waiting room or in the clinic examination rooms. It is therefore recommended that practices have policies in place addressing the method and frequency of cleaning toys. Furry and plush toys such as stuffed animals are difficult to clean and can harbor germs and should generally be avoided in clinic waiting areas and game rooms. Parents can also be encouraged to bring their child’s own toy for the office visit.
So while it may be nice to know your kids could occupy themselves with books and wooden toys in the Doc’s office, everyone might be better off if parents just brought their own playthings from home.
The AAP basically just gives recommendations and doesn’t oversee pediatricians, so it’s worth asking your kids’ doctor if they plan to remove their toys from the waiting room and, if not, how often they sanitize them.
The last thing we need is a healthy kid getting sick!
This Mom Is Warning Other Parents After Toddler Gets Sucked Into Spinning Dryer
A Mom of three is warning other parents after she claims that her young daughter was sucked into a spinning tumble dryer.
The girl, Iiylah-Louise Johnstone-Evans, who is almost two years old, was playing when she opened the dryer’s door and got her finger caught on a blanket as it spun round and round, her mother Shannon Johnstone-Evans wrote on Facebook.
Shannon heard her daughter’s screams and turned the dryer off as the girl’s head was pulled in the spinning apparatus at their Somercotes, U.K., home on October 18.
“I was in the kitchen cooking the kids dinner to hear iiylah screaming (sic),” she wrote, adding that “it was quite muffled.”
The toddler was taken to hospital due to the accident.
She received treatment for tissue damage to her fingers on her right hand at King’s Mill Hospital in Nottinghamshire, the SWNS news agency reported.“I managed to get her out and unwrap the blankets,” she wrote on Facebook, adding that the “cotton was wrapped [around] her finger” and was “cutting the circulation.”
Image credit: Shannon Marie Johnston Facebook
The girl’s fingers “twice there [sic] normal size,” Johnstone-Evans wrote.Johnstone-Evans, who is the mother to three other children, said she attempted to contact the manufacturer of the Crusader CT31V tumble dryer.
The company reportedly doesn’t exist anymore.
“The dryer is a few years old but it had always stopped spinning when you opened the door,” she was quoted as saying.“I’ve thrown the dryer out now and I’ll never have one again. Thank god she was able to cry out and warn me about what was happening,” the terrified mom explained. “It’s been horrible. It’s the most horrific thing that I have ever seen in my life.”
Johnstone-Evans said that when the girl was being pulled it, “it felt like everything was just taking ages.”
Image credit: Shannon Marie Johnston Facebook
The experience has proven to be traumatic for the girl, who is just 23 months old.
“The next day, we put her to bed as normal, but at around 7 p.m. she started screaming again,” Johnstone-Evans said. “She was shaking all over and started vomiting repeatedly. The doctors reckon it must be some sort of seizure, perhaps brought on by shock. Thankfully she is all ok now and on the mend.”
At the end of her Facebook post, the Mom offered a warning to others, saying: “I want to mainly warn parents how dangerous tumble dryers are.”
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