My Daughter Has Cystic Fibrosis and Has Gotten Pneumonia, Could My New Baby “catch” It?
Saturday, September 4th, 2010 at
3:58 am
Ingrid asked:
My 15 year old daughter has Cystic Fibrosis and just got a bacterial pneumonia, she’s been in the hospital for now. I just had a baby recently, do you think its alright to bring the baby around her? I **** being away from my daughter and she wants to be able to see her little sister while she’s in the hospital. But do you think the baby could get pneumonia?
Tagged with: Bacterial Pneumonia • Little Sister • New Baby
Filed under: Cystic Fibrosis
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Bacterial pneumonia often occurs in people with weakened immune systems. If she has been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours, she may no longer be contagious.
Typically newborns have good immune systems; they are especially strong if they are being breast fed.
It might be a good idea to check with the doctors and nurses caring for your hospitalized daughter and ask them before you bring your baby for a visit.
There are two age groups who are generally most at risk of pneumonia (barring any other previous illness). Those over 65 years, and those under 2 year. Technically this means your newborn would fall into this category. However the risk to you new child depends on what stage your 15yr daughter is at in recovery.
Therefore the best thing to do would be to ring up the hospital and check with one of the doctors/nurses. They are the ones who know best regarding the risk as they are more aware of the stage at which your 15yr daughter is at.
I wish you all the best and your daughter a speedy recovery.
Well, it’s unlikely that your baby will be susceptible to the same sorts of organisms that cause trouble for CF patients, but a hospital is not a good place for a baby, especially any ward other than the maternity ward (where people generally are not sick) so I would try to keep your baby out of the hospital as much as possible.
Yes. The baby could get pneumonia.
Did your daughter have pneumonia BEFORE she was admitted? When she was still at home?
You need to know how long your daughter has had the pneumonia and how long she has been receiving treatment. If your daughter doesn’t hold the infant, or breathe on her directly, the chances of transmission are low.
Talk to your daughters CF doc and her paediatrician. Listen to their advice.
I agree it is possible that your baby could bet the pnuemonia.
However, it all depends on what the organism is. Kids with CF tend to get infections with bugs that don’t usually bother the rest of us. So the likely hood is that the baby would give bugs to the CF daughter other than the other way round.
HOWEVER, you do need to talk to your CF doctors who are the experts and would be able to weigh up the balnce of letting your daughters see each other versus the infection risk.