Baby Infectious Disease – Measles

Immunization is started at 12 months (may differ, depend on your state policy), but a small number of baby do catch measles before they are immunized. If this happens, your baby will still need her immunization at 12 months.

The incubation period of measles is seven to 14 days. Measles first appear as a cold. The baby is miserable with a runny nose, watery eyes, a cough and a fever. Two days later spots appear on the neck, behind the ears and on her face.

Within hours the whole body is covered, the rash often joins together and becomes one red mass or a series of blotches. Give paracetamol to bring the fever down and encourage extra fluids. Although measles is an unusual illness now because of high vaccination rates, when it does occur it can sometimes be a very severe illness. If you think your baby may have measles, it is very important that your doctor checks him. In recent years there have been some scares about the possible dangers of measles vaccination, but careful studies have shown that the measles vaccination is not associated with any increase in the incidence of autism.

Read more on Baby Infectious Diseases : Chicken pox, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Roseola, Whooping Cough