Understand Your Child's Immune System
October 10, 2005 | Infections
The average child can get up to 14 colds a year. That’s a lot of coughing and sneezing. With that many typical bugs, how is a parent to know when their child is getting too sick, that it is time to see a specialist?
Tate Goldberg has had barely a sniffle in four-and-a-half years and his father and mother work hard to keep him healthy. But things weren’t going along so well in his first months of life.
“My husband and I took our son to the pediatrician countless times, 12 to 15, with a fever or being cranky,” said his mother Jennifer Goldberg. “He wasn’t a healthy baby.”
As a newborn, Tate had three serious infections in a row: a mysterious skin rash, a rare bout of pneumonia and then a staph infection. He was repeatedly hospitalized.
“We were very concerned, we were new parents and really unsure and wondering: why is our kid sick?” said his father, Matthew Goldberg.
After extensive testing doctors learned Tate has a rare genetic disease that disables his immune system, leaving him very vulnerable to common germs.
“Now he’s taking a maintenance cocktail of antibiotics that are keeping him very healthy, keeping away 80 percent of infections the other 20 percent is up to us.”
The family avoids germs whenever possible. “If I’m at my office and there is somebody sick and it seems risky or unusual and I don’t know why they’re sick, either they have to go home or I’ll go home.”
Tate’s condition is very rare. Primary care doctors and parents together have to figure out how many colds and infections are too many.
“We start getting worried when a child has repeated exposures and repeated infections over and over again,” said Dr. Craig Rubens, an immunologist at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital. “And those infections manifest themselves as very severe, land them in the hospital, requiring antibiotic therapy all the time.”
Repeat skin infections or pneumonia can be red flags, but repeat ear infections in young children are common and not necessarily cause for alarm.
For parents, it may come down to what’s called a “gut” check. If you think your child is too sick too often, ask your doctor if it’s time to see a specialist. Early detection can be a lifesaver, sparing an immune-compromised child serious lung damage from preventable respiratory illnesses.
Young children can get as many as 14 colds a year. For parents they may seem to be constantly sick. For the majority of children these are immune-building experiences but in rare cases something more serious is the cause.
Regular immunizations, a healthy diet and plenty of hand washing are all good cold-prevention strategies.
Seattle’s Children’s Hospital is one of the few hospitals in the country researching and treating children with Primary Immune Defiency Diseases.