Chicken Pox
Posted by Babies - 18/01/09 at 01:01 amAlmost every child gets affected by chicken pox at some point of their growing up phase. Chicken pox is thus considered as a classic disease. The disease is airborne and it is contagious in nature. It starts with symptoms of flu, resulting fever, severe body ache, loss of appetite etc. This is followed by formation of blister like rashes containing water inside it, all over the body. The formations are very itchy but on scratching of nails, it may complicate the infection. If secondary infection occurs, the scars remain permanently. Once a person is affected with chicken pox, the virus remains within the body of the person throughout his/her life, but remains under control of the immune system. It may reappear as shingles due to too much of stress. The new born babies have high risk toward complicated secondary infection. The mother should be immune against chicken pox to keep the baby safe. Some rare complications like encephalitis, cerebellar ataxia, etc can occur from chicken pox. Generally, chicken pox occurring in infants is less severe than that in grown up children or in adults. Chicken pox is a viral disease thus it cannot be treated with antibiotics. As babies may scratch the blisters, thus their nails should be trimmed and scratch –mitts should be placed on the palms to prevent them from scratching. In normal cases chicken pox is allowed to run its natural course to get cured. The blisters can be cured by applying calamine lotion or even baking soda paste. Antiviral are being developed, but these are not yet fullproof.
