In our last newsletter, we published an article “When to keep your sick child home from school…”. The next article in the series, “When to send your sick child back to school or daycare” would have been included in this month’s issue.

I decided this information was too timely to delay until this month’s “Health Tips For Success” newsletter. Since school has started, I’ve been asked dozens of times for guidelines on when to send a “sick” child back to nursery or school.

Since information now flows ten times faster and in a volume twenty times more than when we were in school, educators are trying to include more and more material and content exposure into every day of the school year. Otherwise, children would not be prepared for “normal” aspects of adult life.

So, it’s understandable that parents want their children to return to school as soon as possible after an illness, since it can be so difficult for the kids to catch up. On the other hand, teachers wish for kids to return when they are healthy, so that others will not become ill from their exposure.

Here is the next installment in the “Sick Child” series. I hope it proves to be as valuable to you as it has been to my patients.

Moms and dads ask Family Doctors this question millions of times every week. While there are no absolutely correct answers, pediatric publications do offer some rough guidelines as to when a parent can safely return their “once sick” child to school or daycare without harming the child or placing other children at risk.

Once again, you as the parent are the best judge of how sick or well your child is at a given time in an illness. Therefore, it is really essential that you make good common sense decisions about your child’s well being and whether you will expose other children to a contagious disease as a result of your decision. A responsible parent must think about the health and welfare of not only their child, but also all the other children in that school, and adults such as teachers and support staff.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some rough guidelines for sending kids back to school after an illness.

• With an ear infection once antibiotics have been given for 24 hours and fever has resolved
  
   
• With bronchitis treated with or without antibiotics, once his or her cough is dry, there is no wheezing and child has been fever free for 24 hours
  
   
• After pink eye has been treated with antibiotics for a full 24 hours and there is no pus
  
   
• After impetigo has been treated with antibiotics for minimum 24 hours and there are no oozing sores
  
   
• With strep throat once antibiotics have been given regularly for over 24 hours and the child is not drooling
  
   
• With a nose infection when the drainage turns clear or is only light yellow in color and the child has not had a fever for over 12 hours
  
   
• With head lice after the first night’s treatment with prescription shampoos and child’s hair has been washed thoroughly and rinsed clear. Nits may be seen for two weeks, but are usually dead.
  
   
• With scabies after the first night’s treatment with a prescription lotion and child has been thoroughly showered with warm soapy water and rinsed clear
  
   
• When there were infected sores on the skin, sores must all be dry or at least it must be possible to cover them completely with triple antibiotic, Telfa and gauze dressings
  
   
• After chickenpox, once sores have been present six days and are scabbed
  
   
• With cold sores once all have scabbed and the child is not drooling
  
   
• When your child has not vomited in over 12 hours, does not complain of stomach pain, and is tolerating foods and liquids like those served at school or daycare
  
   
• When there has only been one non-bloody diarrhea stool in the past 24 hours, none in the last eight hours, there is no abdominal pain, and your child is tolerating foods and drink well.
  
   
• After a viral illness when there has been no fever, croupy cough, vomiting or diarrhea for over 12 hours
  
   
• When your child’s behavior appears to have “returned to normal”

There are many other illnesses that are not considered common, and we will not cover in this short summary. Of course as always, you should ask your doctor if you have any concerns about your child’s health and ability to return to school or daycare. Your family doctor is still your best partner in health care.