deerhart, my daughter got H1N1 from being at hospital with hernia surgery!

With our oldest (37 wks born at the end of April) we were told to keep him away from crowds etc.. for the first 4 months. With our youngest (36wks Oct) we got no restrictions (due to him having 2.5 yo brother in daycare to bring home all the germs). My youngest did pick up a light case of RSV, but he could have picked it up from his Hernia surgery in January (he was in a small daycare at that time with just him, his brother, and two other kids).

When we took the kids out and they we in the carset in the stroller, we always turned the stroller into a pram, thus anyone leaning over to look in were at their feet.

Mine were 33 weekers, so not as little at birth- and were born in June. I took them out right away once they came home from the NICU (not quite two weeks after they were born). They were mostly feeders and growers though in the NICU.

I had a 23 weeker in May 2004 who spent 141 days in the NICU. Initially we were told by the NICU staff that we should not leave our house from October-April unless it was to go to the FREQUENT doctors appointments. Then, as my son got to be 7 1/2 pounds when he was about to be released the first weekend in October, we had a couple of nurses take us aside and talk to us about "outings." We were told that there was absolutely no way that we would be able to spend the next 5 months quarantined in our house with our DS and our other two children (girls age 2 and 4). The nurses' advice was this: go out to whereever you need to go, but leave the baby in his carrier, put the carrier down inside a store basket and leave it covered with a light blanket so that people won't notice him. We went LOTS of places, including Christmas shopping with our little guy (who was on an apnea monitor that was in the basket with him). Most of the time we made it through Walmart or the grocery store without anyone even noticing that there was a baby in our "second" basket. I had a part time job at night in retail (handling money) and my husband worked in retail sales and we made it through the first two RSV seasons after our son was born without anyone in our house getting sick. You CAN go out, even with a preemie, if you are diligent about hand washing and changing your clothes before you handle baby when you get home. Doctors will always warn against it, and if you can avoid going out then you should...but not if you are going to lose your mind from being cooped up in your house.

My 28-weeker came home just before Thanksgiving and we kept her secluded until Easter.

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Originally posted by holiday

Well I had asked the ped and got some non answer lol. So I figured I would get better advice here :o)

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I would switch pediatricians. If the ped cannot answer my questions I would not be comfortable with him/her.

btw, kiddos who are under 18 are more susceptible to colds and yucky viruses...that's another reason the pedi suggested adults only during the holidays.

Holidays, according to my pedi, were okay for the babies to attend as long as the youngest person was over the age of 18. The idea is that adults know how to sneeze and cough into their arms and wash their hands frequently and well.

My babies were born early in January. As soon as the weather got warmer, we were allowed to take them outside for as many walks as we wanted. Also, we were told that as soon as they had their first round of shots, we could take them into public places, but NOT drugstores. Drugstores have tons of pp who are sick getting prescriptions. So, I took Adam and Noah to Starbuck's a lot. I LOVED smelling their little heads after those trips...yummy coffee smell! :-)

ok another question how about holidays? Should I even go to Thanksgiving or Christmas celebrations with family? I was just thinking about this today.