Parents of newborns- how are you handling visitors during Covid?
We have a two month old, and we are navigating having visitors over. All of our adult family members are vaccinated, but we do have young nieces and nephews who cannot be vaccinated yet. Understandably, both adults and kids want to see and hold the baby, but we have continued to be pretty cautious even with the adults. We are wondering how other parents of newborns are handling this issue both with the vaccinated adults and the unvaccinated kids? Do you have different rules for indoors and outdoors? And is there a source where have you been getting your guidance on this issue?
Jun 20, 2021
Parent Replies
So I don't have a newborn yet, but will in October. Our plan is only vaccinated persons can hold baby. Any unvaccinated person must keep their distance and wear a mask around baby. I do not plan to have unvaccinated people go unmasked around baby even if we are outdoors. It feels too risky to me. I don't have any specific sources to cite, but I've just been following the CDC and taking a more cautious approach. If you have Instagram, I highly recommend checking out @pedsdoctalk she is a pediatrician who discusses COVID a lot and is also super practical about the reality of everyday life. I also like @kinggutterbaby she is an infectious disease specialist who has been working with COVID closely, she hosts really approachable Q&A sessions about COVID on her page and breaks down all the new research. Finally, there is a FB group called Coronavirus (COVID-19) Support for Bay Area Families, its a really respectful group to ask questions and people only share valid research articles there. Hope that helps! Congrats on the new baby!
I found this write-up in the NYT super helpful about how low risk kids are (even infants!).
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/briefing/kids-covid-and-delta.html
However, if you are still going to be cautious, I'd recommend doing an outdoor thing. NYT also had a great write-up of how it's pretty much impossible for Covid to spread outdoors:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-…
Also, I always made sure people didn't even have the sniffles when coming over and of course, everyone washes hands! :-)
My daughter is 8.5 months old, so we had to navigate the newborn phase in a totally unvaccinated state. We were very strict. Post vaccine—must be vaccinated to hold. Pre-vaccine: must quarantine for 2 weeks.
Inside only with one other household. Outside with no more than 5 households. We’ve been very strict about other people holding her—only grandparents if other family are there. It’s hard, but even vaccinated people can transmit and it’s just not a risk we want to take. We spend a lot of time weighing the benefits and risk. At the moment, we’re in a pandemic window, so we’ve been a little looser. But with the delta variant on the rise, we’re preparing to reign it in again.
We have a two month old as well, we’ve only let limited vaccinated close adult friends and family hold him both indoors and out, and have been able to avoid taking him inside places with multiple unmasked strangers (grocery stores etc) so far. We have had play dates inside with families with toddlers but not with any families with toddlers in daycare (so all limited germ exposure situations). After he gets his two month shots next week we will likely loosen up, we were more concerned about his immune system pre-two month vaccinations versus COVID specially.
We haven’t found a great resource for COVID guidelines with infants, if anyone has one to share we’d be very curious especially since we’ll be starting daycare in two months.
I'm 38 weeks pregnant so we don't have a newborn just yet. We're both fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, but about 6 weeks ago my sister, cousin, aunt and uncle all got Covid despite being fully vaccinated (including 2 week wait post last shot) after attending an indoors unmasked dinner party together. As a result we're now we're being extra extra cautious, especially because my sister is still recovering 5 weeks later (main symptom as this point is fatigue). Having a newborn and recovering from Covid at the same time sounds absolutely terrible, so much of our precaution is to protect me and my husband as much as it is to protect the baby.
Our current thinking is:
• Socialize in well-ventilated outdoor areas whenever possible. Let friends and family (probably including unvaccinated kids, but this is a bit TBD) hold the baby, but as an extra precaution ask them to wear a mask. As detailed in this NYT article from May 11, there is basically no evidence of Covid spreading outdoors (so a mask is probably a little overkill), BUT this data is of course all retrospective, and we want to be extra cautious given the new, more transmissible Delta variant.
• Allow a select few vaccinated adults to be inside our house unmasked. Probably this will just be my parents, sister and her husband, and one other set of close friends who we really trust (and who are always wearing N95 masks when indoors, and not allowing others in their house without an N95 mask).
• If other friends need to come inside our house (e.g. to use the bathroom) ask them to wear an N95 mask.
Not sure if you've come across the writing of Emily Oster, but would highly recommend her newsletter (https://emilyoster.substack.com/) if you want a very data-driven, evidence-based way analysis of how to think about Covid risk with infants and kids.
Good luck!
If you got vaccinated while pregnant the data is very good that the baby will carry antibodies. That is my situation and I don’t stress about anyone interacting with the baby indoors or outdoor. My baby is 3 months. That said pretty much any adults that have held the baby are vaccinated and it’s rare in these covid times for a non family member to make any attempt to physically interact with the baby. My baby does have an unvaccinated older sister in childcare and that is probably her biggest potential exposure source. But as I said, I don’t stress since I got vaxxed in my third trimester. And I wouldn’t stress much if I hadn’t because kids don’t transmit the virus easily, delta variant notwithstanding. I worry more about my 3 year old but take comfort in minimal adverse effects to her age group.
Following! We have a 4 month old and have been very cautious thus far. It feels prudent to treat her as unvaccinated eventhough I’m breastfeeding! So far we’ve only let family indoors/ hold her with a 5 day quarantine post travel and a negative covid test. I feel ok about being around folks outside, and think I am almost ready to ease with vaccinated folks indoors who have not been exposed via travel or in groups which might consist of anyone unvaccinated, but feel really flummoxed by older young children who are in school or daycare. Would love to hear what other people are doing and thinking!
I have a 6 week old. We let both sets of vaccinated grandparents hold our newborn - they were visiting from out of state, we hadn't seen them in over a year and a half and probably won't see them again for at least a few months. All other visits have been outdoors unmasked with vaccinated individuals and no holding baby.
Honestly right now I'm more concerned about the other viruses going around and things that would be introduced from my toddler's interactions. I'd take that into account with your nieces and nephews.