Is your baby showing signs of a cold or flu combined with very red cheeks? They may have slapped cheek virus.
Our horrible experience occurred recently when our child called out from her morning cot at the usual time.
I went in to get her only to find that her sheets, blankets, stuffed toys and cot were all covered in thick, reddish brown, liquid stains.
After panicking and checking her for cuts we realized that the poor little thing had thrown up all over the place. I must say that we were very worried.
We could not think for the life of us what would make her so sick. We called her grandparents who had been minding her the previous day to find out exactly what she had eaten and in what amounts. Nothing unusual there.
She did scoff half a dozen strawberries in the afternoon so that would account for the alarming vomit colour. As she otherwise appeared fine we put it down to too much food from overzealous, European (eat, eat you must eat) grandparents.
Well we were wrong (as usual). She had been on antibiotics for the flu symptoms she had been displaying the previous week but those symptoms had almost disappeared. The only strange thing was that she had quite red cheeks.
We didn’t really think much of it at the time as our little one always has a slightly hot head and is usually a little rosy cheeked first thing in the morning. As a precautionary measure we decided to take her to the Doctor anyway.
As it turns out our little bub had an infectious viral disease commonly known as Slapped Cheek Virus. Can you believe that? Symptoms are flu like in the first week or so followed by vomiting, listlessness and very red blotchy marks on the cheeks and upper arms.
Slapped Cheek Virus is usually caught from playgrounds or airborne particles and has an incubation period of seven to twenty one days. It cannot be treated with anti-biotic as it is a virus and the only thing to do is keep their fluids up and give them plenty of rest.
Slapped cheek virus can be passed on to adults however the symptoms will manifest themselves as flu like but without the red rash or the vomiting. Now I know why I was feeling pretty crappy as well.
It just goes to show that you cannot presume anything when it comes to the health of your child and if you are not sure then you must take them to the doctor.
It also shows that seemingly unrelated symptoms can sometimes be related after all and most importantly that not all European grandparents over feed grandchildren (only most of them!).
Better to be safe than sorry..