Rabies Vax for a Baby - Don't Freak Out!

[cakegirl]

Hi all,
I am posting here because when frantically searching online for personal experiences with giving babies or very small children the rabies immunoglobulin and vaccine series, I could not find anything. Anywhere. So I hope that by posting here I may be able to provide some reassurance to those that find themselves in similar circumstances.
A week ago, I went in our 8 month old daughter's room at about 5 am to feed her. As I am half asleep with her nursing away, I heard some rustling and discovered a bat in her room. I had put her to bed in her room at about 8:30 pm and no one had been in her room since, so we had no idea how long the bat had been in there. (Even worse, I had just moved her out of our room/bed a few days prior - talk about parental guilt!)
We immediately looked her over for any marks, scratches, etc, and found nothing. I also searched the room top to bottom for bat poop. Once again, nothing. My husband managed to catch the bat, which we subsequently had tested for rabies.
The rabies test came back inconclusive. Great. Apparently, "inconclusive" means that some brain abnormalities were present, but the abnormality does not resemble a typical rabies presentation (feel free to jump in here if more of you know better on this - I'm just repeating what I was told by the Public Heath guy).
So, what do we do? My daughter is 8 months old and has never had ANY vaxes - and now we're debating shooting her up with the rabies series, a notoriously horrible experience. Plus, there was no evidence that she had any contact with the bat whatsoever, and the bat did not conclusively test positive for rabies. Ah, what are granola loving vax-shy parents to do?
The CDC recommendation is that any time there is a bat in a sleeping baby/child's room, and the bat is either positive for rabies, inconclusive, or unknown, you vax. Well thanks, CDC, that's really less than helpful. The problem is, there is a dearth of information on how the rabies vax is tolerated by babies. Public health, several doctors, and our local university medical complex were all at a loss for information, and questioned why I was even concerned. Great.
I myself had received the rabies series as a four year old after being bitten by a bat while sleeping (maybe it's a genetic thing) and it was an awful experience. I had very high fevers and was very ill after receiving the shots.
Reluctantly, we decided to vax our baby for rabies, especially after reading horror stories (although extremely rare) of children who died of rabies months after exposure to a rabid animal. To be honest, we ended up getting the vax more for my sanity than for any realistic concern that our daughter was actually exposed. Unlike common childhood vaxes, rabies is a disease that leaves no room for error. Once symptoms appear, it is almost always fatal.
She received the immunoglobulin and first vax shots two days ago, and so far has shown absolutely NO reaction whatsoever. No fever, no fussiness, no swelling at the injection sites, nothing. I can't believe it, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. If she does exhibit any reactions after administering the remaining shots, I plan to update this post.
I hope that any of you that are faced with similar circumstances can find this post helpful and reassuring, and feel free to contact me!

[PlayaMama]

boy that must have been a hard decision to make! i'm so glad that your dd is doing well

[Kirsten]

Stressful situation! I'm glad she is doing well.

[serenbat]

What state are you in and what type of bat was it?

Did you contact your local environmental/state park (NOT animal control!)- depending on the type you may not have even been at risk (of course animal control will tell you otherwise)- IF you have not spoken to a knowledgeable person you should do so ASAP. All states have staff that deal just with bats and could help you far better than dealing with your local animal control or health department.

Did you kill the bat or just find it?

Was it tested for white-nose fungus? This is VERY serious (not to you but to the bat population) and your state would want to know this.

You can also have the bat retested, I would have done this.

IF you do not know (again this depends on your state) MOST do not have rabies.

[serenbat]

This site may help, again, it is very important to know the type of bat, it talks about treatment and how rare rabies is from bats.

http://www.batcon.org/index.php/bats...nd-rabies.html

BCI is really leader in bats for this country.

again, if you haven't spoken to your local state park, I urge you to do so

for those that do not know, you should do your best to NEVER kill the bat, but to capture it instead, in PA it is a crime and they do fine you

[2boyzmama]

I admit to not having read up on rabies much, but I always thought that I would do the series in a heartbeat because like you said, it is almost 100% fatal. I might take 24 hours to research insanely crazy to see if there was any other alternative, but I'd also be a nervous wreck during those 24 hours.

I'm so glad she's doing well with the series, and especially glad that she doesn't appear to have been injured by the bat anyway.

It sounds to me that you did your research and followed your instinct. You say that you're doing the series for your sanity, maybe that's mama gut telling you something. You're not blindly following recommendation, you've researched and researched...I think the decision sounds like the right one for you.

[greenrosemom4]

About 7 years ago my friends went camping. Anyway a bat came out during the day and bit their 5 year old(hence why we affectionatly call him Bat Boy now). It turns out a bat out in daylight is a sure sign of rabies. They captured the bat and immediatly got DS to the hospital. Test proved the bat was rabid and he had to be started on the imunoglobulin within 2 hours.

Anyway, since my friend and another touched the bite, they were given the rabies series too. And as a precaution my friends 4 month old baby was also given the series because her paci kept falling on the ground and their was a slight possibility she was exposed.

All are fine today. The baby never had a problem with the series.

I'm sure your DD will be fine.

Terri

[denimtiger]

I saw a similar situation when I worked at a sleep-away camp in upstate NY. Parents of six of the girls in the cabin decided to go with the vaxes. I chose not to for myself only because we discovered the bat about five minutes after I'd gotten into bed and I knew I hadn't had contact with the bat. The bat was unable to be tested because the (less than sober) male staff who came in to catch it decided to play games back at their kid-free housing, and ended up smashing its skull with a tennis racket. There was confirmed rabies in the area, though, including a rabid raccoon that ended up drowning in one of the swimming pools that same month.

The girls were all between 7 and 8 years old. The only side effect at all out of the six girls was one red splotch on one arm after the first dose. No effects after the second dose whatsoever, and these girls were at camp and running around doing activities all day long. They were fine. They were back home for the last doses, but they seemed to tolerate the vaccine just fine.

Rabies is SO serious that if there was even a chance of exposure, it just would not be worth my mental state to take that chance, or spend time worrying for the next year about whether I made the right choice. By the time you know anything for sure with rabies, it's too late to do anything, and you're stuck watching your child die a horrible death.

I question a whole lot of vaccines a whole lot, but not rabies. I haven't researched it a whole lot, but from what I remember there are pretty close to zero cases of rabies in people who are vaccinated on time after exposure. Rabies is just not something to mess around with.

[amnesiac]

Just posting this here for future reference since this change is new:
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/qanda/ACIP4dose.html

[serenbat]

The bat was unable to be tested because the (less than sober) male staff who came in to catch it decided to play games back at their kid-free housing, and ended up smashing its skull with a tennis racket.

-That is why IF you can get it alive you may have a much better chance of having an accurate test. How long a dead animal sits and the condition can also play a factor in having an accurate test. Also if it can be kept alive it can be monitored by a trained rehabilitator. So many people think nothing of killing a bat, but you won't put down a dog if you did not know it had rabies.

Just posting this here for future reference since this change is new:
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/qanda/ACIP4dose.html

-The new change is VERY important and dealing with most local health depts. is not always the best. Most simply look info up and have never really dealt with real bat rabies (it is SUPER RARE!!). Contacting BCI can help you and to insure that if you are dealing with a child you get the proper dose needed.

As I stated prior, it is so important to contact your local state park so that they can put you in touch with a knowledgeable bat expert. Sadly, most local health dept. are clueless about bats and when rabies vac. is given out it can be months or never till the local park service knows about the case.
It is important to let them know, because of the type of bat, and to know if there are other bats locally that have been found dead, etc., this also goes for dead birds.

It turns out a bat out in daylight is a sure sign of rabies.

-While this is true in some cases, there are more and more sightings of bats in the day time and it is NOT related to rabies, it is cause by disruption of habitat.

Bat are very easy to capture with harming them and yourself.