Rotavirus

[drewid]

DH and I were watching the news last night and caught a story about Rotavirus, which is apparently doing the rounds at the moment.

My little niece is almost 2, and has been sick for a week, very listless, off her food and drink. She got taken to hospital today and yep...she has rotavirus. Its apparently VERY contagious and can be very dangerous for young children.

The very sad thing is that they took to the Mater Childrens and couldnt' admit her, cos they had no beds. They then went to the RBH and no beds there either. So my poor little niece is at home! How terrible is that. To make it worse, she has a 1mth old little sister at home as well and the risk of her catching the virus is a scary prospect.

Anyway I am mildly concerned for my little boy, as we were all together on Sunday for Fathers Day at the inlaws. They didn't touch each other, no shared use of nappy change tables, or anything like that. So fingers crossed all should be fine with Andrew - he is as happy as larry today and no signs of illness.

Just something to watch out for guys. My SIL and BIL have just let their DD be sick for a week before getting worried enough to have it checked out. I urge you all to be on the lookout for this nasty virus...

[Briannabear]

Thats terrible. :( What are the symptoms?
I cant believe that about the hospitals - how awful. :mad:

[justtwogirls22]

i saw it too but couldn't remember what it was called - thanks for posting about it cause i think my nephew on the sunshine coast has it - i know about no beds at royal childrens - my other nephew is in there today for a operation which was cancelled till his parents complained that the operation needed doing - he is only 2 & has cystic fibrosis

hope your neice is better soon

im going to search rotavirus

[WeThree]

my poor little coopy had this at 5 mths old, he actually was admitted to hopital to investigate some fitting he had been having and the ward was full of little ones with the rota virus and he of course cought it to and he was sooo sick, it was horrible.
Brianna bear the symptoms are bad diarrohea, not eating/drinking/, vomiting/fever etc, basically a really bad tummy bug, not nice at all :(

[our little treasures]

My dd had this about 2 mnths ago and we took her to monash medical as she was vomiting in bed and had bad poohs etc. When we got there she picked up and was chatty so they did a few tests and told me and hubby to go home after they took a pooh sample. They said they would ring if results showed anything, this was a friday night.
Anyway dd didnt get better got dehydrated and stopped eating altogether until day 5 when she wanted milk. She was so weak and lost an awful lot of wieght. I took her to docs on the wed and he said she was ok and she had picked up. Next morning the hosi rang at 8.30 and said they had the results and she had rotavirus and to bring her back in I said she had the all clear and was doing fine and tjhe lady said I hope you kept her away from all children etc.
Just as well she got better they rang nearly a week later, Trust me it was horrible to see her in that awful stage.

[Ky]

My daughter had this in March, in fact she was admitted to hospital on her 4th birthday! She was in there for 4 days and nights until she was able to drink again on her own. It went through the entire family (luckily when I had it I was staying at the hospital with her!) and my husband managed to stave off most of the symptoms with drinking a glass of water every ten minutes for two hours and he only ever got a mild dose of diarrhoea.

We had to be isolated for a couple of weeks as there hadn't been any cases in our area so far this year and we had just arrived home from a trip to New Zealand ... this was the best way to stop an outbreak.

It is not a nice thing for your child to go through and if you are able to get them to drink, eat rehydration iceblocks etc then you should be able to manage it at home.

[tinkster]

as the pp said, so long as you can get something down the child its not really something that needs hospitalisation.. i work on a kids ward so i know ALL about rota...it is a nasty virus, but it effects every child differently...
it is very easliy spread but good handwashing should avoid that..

its not nice for the child and nappies are even not nicer for parents, but at the end of the day its gastro, you just gotta wait it out

[mumatwork]

I saw something in the paper today. I also found some information on Rotavirus to say that even with good hygiene/handwashing etc it is still very contagious and spreads very easily. You would have thought they would be good at handwashing in hospitals and it still spreads there too!

Keeping your child rehydrated is the most important. My little girl had it at one years of age and I spent a few days just feeding her water/gastrolyte etc every 20mins (couple of mls at time from a dropper as she wouldn't drink from a bottle or cup) to keep her fluid up and that just managed to keep her out of hospital but it was very stressful and she was very sick poor love! It also meant I was off work and also got sick myself..but not as bad as she was!