Monday, October 15, 2007

It's not a peanut, but still pretty lethal in my opinion

To comment on my earlier peanut blog, which has raised some remarks on and off-line, I am not discounting the severe allergies some kids have to peanuts (or wheat, or bees, or any number of other things we encounter in the everyday world that, if not treated properly, could have a tragic ending). But all those things exist in the world, and so we must learn to co-exist. I'm also not putting down my daycare, because it was great that they recognized the peanut butter and got it the hell out of the classrooms as fast as possible. They are a 'nut-free' facility, to the point that I have to pay a caterer (designated by them) if I want my child to have a birthday cake to celebrate with his friends. You can't bring any kind of food into their rooms unless you have an accompanying note from their doctor that says they need this food and, by the way, that food needs to be in it's original packaging with the ingredients clearly listed on the label. Trust me, these people don't mess around. I don't benefit from it, but I do appreciate it.

I do think the disinfecting of a room that did not have the peanut product in it was a little much. I also think the APB type email to all the parents was a little much. Allow me to elaborate:

Several months ago, when Eric was a resident of the Infant room (aka non-walking kids), I came to pick him up and was immediately pulled into the office by a staff member. They informed me that another infant in the room had lost an earring at some point during the day. After realizing it was missing, they cleared the infants out of the room and searched/vacuumed the room. They never found the earring, but assumed it got caught on something and went into the trash or maybe it was outside...babies tend to look at things for a bit before sticking it in their mouth, so it was highly unlikely a child had swallowed the earring. As a precaution, they were notifying all the infants' parents and we were told it was very 'likely' the earring would pass through, on the slim chance a child had swallowed the earring. But there's still a chance it could get stuck on the way down and there were various symptoms to watch out for. I think this was a normal/sane way to handle the situation. If they had handled this to the degree the peanut situation was handled, they would have ordered a full body scan for every infant and banned children/staff from wearing jewelry (probably parents too). That would have been a little much.

Anyway, I digress and wish those people/kids with such severe allergies the best of luck in managing them throughout their lives.

2 comments:

  1. Tommy came home with several new cuts on his hand...and NO incident report. Should I worry? And does the WHOLE building need to know that someone screwed up and deliverd an UNopened package of something with peanuts in it...or just the room where the peanut infested food was?! I have mixed feelings....epi pens are wonderful inventions, aren't they?

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  2. Ah, boys will be boys!! I think we think alike on this peanut thing :-)

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