Chicken pox exposure

[phillytwinmama]

how young is too young to expose your children to the chicken pox? I remember when I was young that people said when they got it as a baby, they got it again in childhood. How long would you wait to expose your kids so they have the antibodies for life?

[Marnica]

I think I would wait until at least a year, but that is just so I would feel better about him having it so young and any complications, as for immunity lasting i have no idea!

[jakesmama]

I'm not desperately searching for chicken pox yet (um, funny that we have to 'search' for a common childhood ailment) but I have asked around and dd is 18 mos. I think that is young enough to get by without too much fuss but old enough to handle the illness. I don't know about the immunity part though. I'm curious to see what others say!

[Moonglow Girl]

I'm curious to see what others here say. We've just been thru this dilemma.

After several years of people driving out of state for CP, we've currently got plenty of pox parties going on in our community.

But our AP-friendly, non-vax tolerant ped advised us to wait on exposing our youngest until he was done nursing.

Supposedly, CP antibodies from my milk make it less likely he'd catch a proper, full-on case of CP. Which might leave him with less than lifetime immunity.

So we're passing on the pox parties. I just hope we can find some nearby ones a few years from now!

[jakesmama]

Oh, that's interesting..I hadn't thought about that. Well, maybe we'll wait too. DD doesn't nurse very much anymore (maybe once every 2-3 days) but just in case.

[MyLilPwny]

I would like my child to be able to communicate well enough, before knowingly exposing her to chicken pox.

I read some where, maybe it was on here some where, that a mother tried to expose her unvaccinated children to chicken pox at 3 different chicken pox parties, but they never developed chicken pox. Probably because their immune systems kept fighting it off?

[Multimomma]

Originally Posted by phillytwinmama

how young is too young to expose your children to the chicken pox? I remember when I was young that people said when they got it as a baby, they got it again in childhood. How long would you wait to expose your kids so they have the antibodies for life?

I don't know that there is too young. Ava was five months old when she caught it from her siblings, and we do full-on cosleeping, babywearing, bfing. I honestly didn't think she'd get it. She had just as good a case as the others, but she wasn't nearly as ill, if that makes sense. She nursed more, which is what you'd expect with any virus, but never acted fussy or upset. She loved all the extra baths I was giving. The other kids weren't really ill either, but they did complain about itching, and one day each where their stomachs were upset.

She's been exposed twice more and hasn't caught it, so I'm guessing her immunity is pretty strong.