Dirt is great, but germs are gross. Here are some of our strategies for preventing and addressing illnesses at Mud Pies Preschool.

Managing Sickness During COVID

See the landing page of this website.

Managing Sickness Normally

Prevention Through Washing Hands At Drop Off and Throughout the Day

The sink and soap are your friends. Please use them (or sanitizer during Covid!) every day at drop off.

All children in our care also wash hands after using the potty/getting changed, and before and after meals/snacks. We also suggest you have your child wash their hands when they get home from school.

Prevention Through Staying Home If Ill

If your child has any of the following symptoms –

  • a fever of 100 degrees or more,
  • diarrhea (>1 incidence),
  • vomiting,
  • unusual yellow color to skin,
  • a severe cough,
  • wheezing or difficulty breathing,
  • skin or eye lesions,
  • a severe rash,
  • complaints of severe pain –

then please wait 24 hours before you bring them into our care. This also applies to over-the-counter medicine: if you have given your child a dose of something to reduce fever, that resets the clock to another 24 hours.

*For the “middle-of-the-road” sickness, if your child needs their nose wiped >4 times per hour, then perhaps they should stay home. One cold can quickly turn into ten colds in a childcare setting!

How We Handle Lice

This topic makes us feel itchy and uncomfortable. But lice happens, especially during childhood. Here’s how we will deal with it. 

  • WE SET PRIORITIES
    • If a child has lice we want to:
      • make them feel safe / maintain their dignity
      • reduce the spread to the rest of the children
  • WE GOT ORGANIZED
    • For more informationon lice, we found this post on KidsHealth to be quite comprehensive.
    • For experts/resources, we found Kathy at LiceWise (971-263-4867) who offers mobile in-home service throughout the Portland metro region. Another group that comes highly recommended is Lice Knowing You with a location at 1125 SE Madison St.
    • For tools, we ordered three (3) “Terminator” combs which are fine-toothed stainless steel combs that get out every louse (the bug) and nit (the egg). We also purchased lice shampoo/conditioner.
  • WE CREATED AN ACTION PLAN
    • If we discover a child has lice we will:
      • Notify their parents/guardians immediately
      • Separate them from the rest of the children (similar to what we do if a child has a fever and is getting picked up)
      • Send them home with a lice kit – one of the combs, plus some special shampoo and conditioner that we purchased – so that the parents/guardians have the tools they need to address the situation immediately
      • Check all the children
      • Notify all parents/guardians to be on the lookout while maintaining the confidentiality of the child/family who had the nit/louse/lice.

Are we missing anything with our strategy to address lice? If you have any tools or tips, please let us know!

How We Respond to a Flu Pandemic

Here are a few resources for your information:

The following procedure is based on recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Definition: Pandemic Flu is a global outbreak of disease that occurs when a new flu virus appears that can spread easily from person to person. Because people have not been exposed to this new virus before, they have little to no immunity to the virus; therefore serious illness or death is more likely to result than during the seasonal flu.

PROCESS:

  1. In the case of the threat of a pandemic flu, Mud Pies Preschool will identify a liaison on the staff who will keep in contact with the local health department and stay on top of information being distributed by the CDC.
  2. Flexible Contingency Plan:
    1. MILD PANDEMIC: Everyday Preventative Actions should be promoted and reinforced by teachers and parents:
      1. Stay home when sick. Students and staff must stay home for at least 24 hours after a fever is gone without the use of fever-reducing medications.
      2. Cover coughs and sneezes with tissue or elbows (not hands).
      3. Wash hands with soap often for 20 seconds.
      4. Clean frequently touched surfaces and objects such as door knobs.
    2. MODERATE PANDEMIC:
      1. Follow all Everyday Preventative Actions listed above.
      2. Encourage ‘social distancing” by reducing the number of activities that bring children close together.
        1. Split up groups
        2. All people entering the property will need to have a temperature of 99.5 or lower in order to gain access. Temperatures will be checked at the front gate (To be determined if we’ll actually do this. But it was a recommended step for larger schools.)
        3. Separate children showing symptoms. Staff tending ill child will wear protective gear.
        4. Any staff or children with family members who are ill will need to be evaluated through the CDC Risk assessment whether to be allowed at school.
      3. Plan for potential teacher absences.
        1. Substitute as available.
        2. Parents may be asked to fill in.
        3. If there are not enough people to operate the preschool safely school will be closed until enough employees can return to work.
    1. SEVERE PANDEMIC
      1. School closure would be declared by local or state health department.
      2. Possible extended school closure, which could range from weeks to up to 3 months.

Advice for Smoky Conditions

(An email from Dr. Louise Tolzmann on Sept 12, 2020. Sharing it here for parents of children in our care.)

“This week I literally finished my 100+ slides for a presentation I am giving at the end of October on smoke & the health effects seen in firefighters. Here’s my summary:

Smoke is not just particles – it is all the substances that are burning.  It is gases & plastics & pesticides & toxic metals & flame retardants.*  These get attached to the particles and we breathe them in.  And we absorb them through our skin (even firefighters on oxygen have elevated levels of benzenes).  And we ingest them.The particles they are measuring as part of air pollution is PM 2.5 – which is just the size (2.5 micrometers).  The smaller particles – PM 0.1 are much more toxic.  They aren’t being measured & often the PM 2.5 is made up of 0.1 glommed together.  In any case these small particles are dangerous because they don’t stay in your lungs – they go straight into your blood stream & straight into organs like your brain & your heart.

So what you can do:

  • Try to reduce your exposure to smoke!  
    • Don’t go outside.  
    • Don’t exercise.  
    • Close your windows & doors.  
    • Wear as much of a mask as you have – N100 or N95 or your homemade ones – maybe doubled or tripled (??).
    • If you have air filters & you forgot to turn them on – do so.
    • If you have a way to circulate air in your house through a filter – like an HVAC system – do that.  
    • If you can – double up on your filter in the unit or change it frequently.
    • And if you do have a way to circulate & filter – then seal your house up – use tape on windows or doors that are leaky.  
    • Close your chimney flue. 
    • Reduce the dust inside – wipe down surfaces, vacuum.  The particles that have come in are carrying all the toxic things – try not to have them move around every time you move around & rebreathe them. 
  • Supplements:
    • B complex vitamins. – They did a study where they stuck people into a pollution chamber (literally) for 2 hours after they had been on placebo or B vitamin for a month – and the B vitamins protected & reversed the DNA damage from the pollution!!
    • Fish oil – heart attacks go up after smoke exposures.  Your entire body is getting inflamed from this – especially your brain.  Take your fish oil
    • N-Acetyl Cysteine – 500 mg 3-4X per day.  Major support for detox pathways in your body
    • Glutathione:– you probably don’t have this – but if you do & you forgot to take it – do it now.  And then take some Vitamin C to help you recycle your glutathione.
    • Green Tea!- start drinking it.  Super anti-oxidant – helps so many chemicals get cleared
    • Brassica Veggies:– broccoli cabbage cauliflower. . . . . . all super important helpers for you to clear the toxicants you are being exposed to.
    • Any other anti-inflammatory supplements you happen to have around – turmeric, vitamin C, vitamin D, elderberry. . . . . . your body is working really really hard to clear the smoke – give it a little help.

Stay safe friends!  These are indeed very interesting times we are living through. – Dr. Louise Tolzmann, Portland, OR 9/2020″

*Dr. Tolzmann is likely referring to structural fires, not forest fires. It’s forest fire smoke that is saturating the Portland air in September 2020. Still, good advice to consider.

This page will be built out further over time with all kinds of resources around common (and uncommon) childhood illness challenges. What topic interests you most?

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