Your little one has a fever and you notice a rash covering her body. To make matters worse, she cannot seem to stop scratching. It might be chicken pox, but be careful: Old chicken pox remedies might not be the safest way to treat your child’s outbreak.
How soon will her friends or siblings come down with it? Is it best to get it over with all at once? These questions are what spurred the age-old practice of hosting a chicken pox party. However, current medical advice says it is not recommended.
“Years ago, chicken pox parties spread the illness easily to others, because it is transmitted through direct contact or through the air, such as from sneezing or coughing,” says Dr. Dean Jacobs, a CHOC pediatrician. “Before the vaccine, these parties were considered a way for a child to get the disease at a younger age when chicken pox was thought to be ‘ordinarily less severe.’”
Chicken pox, also known as varicella, occurs when a rash that appears as small pink dots develops into blisters, called vesicles, that cover the body. Children with chicken pox are contagious starting two days before symptoms appear, allowing the virus to transmit rapidly before contained. Although the disease varies in severity, Jacobs recommends that, for most, the chicken pox vaccine is the best antidote.
“The vaccine is excellent, with greater than 80 percent of children who are vaccinated being completely protected,” says Jacobs. “And in others, usually any chicken pox illness they get later in life is very mild, with a minimal rash along with less fever and fewer symptoms.”
The chicken pox vaccine does not usually have side effects, but it is not completely perfect, either. The vaccine is readily available, but it is not mandatory for afflicted children to receive the vaccination.
These days, chicken pox is no longer an unavoidable right of passage for a child, but what happens when she contracts chicken pox from one of her friends? First, she will need to stay home from school or daycare until the sores have dried. This is a sign that the child is no longer contagious.
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