# my childcarer is epileptic and smokes - advice appreciated.



## roze (Mar 20, 2004)

Hi there,

I am not sure whether this is the best place to post but I would appreciate some advice before I potentially cut off my nose to spite my face.

I gave birth to my twin girls in late November. They are now 6 weeks old.  They are fine however one was admitted to hospital with bronchialitis just before Xmas and given the works, ie oxygen box, IV antibiotics, tube feeding, etc, you name it, my little baby had tubes everywhere and it was very distressing however she is now on the mend and putting on weight again. I am however still concerned about her propensity to catch things- she now has another cold and is getting very snuffly again, although at this moment in time is still feeding ok, something which stopped before requiring her hospital admission.

I have for some time been in touch with a local college about getting a childcare student for the next two terms, to give them experience and also to have someone else around to help and amuse the twins. It has taken some time and the meeting with the student and staff member was postponed due to my being in and out of hospital so much before the birth. We eventually met last week and all seemed fine. However two things have cropped up to make me feel concerned;

1) I was given written information about the students placement and name , address,e tc, which I only managed to read over the weekend. There is a paragraph at the bottom whichsimply refers to her being epileptic albeit controlled by medication. This does make me uneasy as what would happen if she had a fit whilst holding or bathing one of the twins. She is not meant to be left unsupervised but in practice I could be in the kitchen or the loo whilst she is holding one of the babies.  I don't want to have a gut reaction here as I don't know very much about the illness but I have to say I am concerned about this and also felt that the college should have discussed this with me before turning up with her on my doorstep two days before she was due to start. 

2) When the student turned up on Monday she smelled very strongly of smoke. I am a non smoker and hate the habit with a vengeance and am a bit of a fanatic about this. The smell pervaded my house all day. I did not say anything at the time. I did give her one of the twins to hold but I felt uneasy about it. I am sure I read somewhere about smokers needing to wash their hands before handling infants and of the dangers of their absorbing nicotine from peoples clothes.  At lunchtime she told me she was a smoker and went outside to smoke quite a few cigarettes. We were going somewhere in the car together in the afternoon and the smell was very strong and made me feel unwell.

I would therefore appreciate any advice you have on a medical front about both epilepsy and small children, especially smaller twins, one of whom clearly may have frequently compromised breathing, being in such close proximity to a smoker. I am sure I read the dangers of this  in some advice I was given by a health visitor however I cannot find it.  I need the free help from the college but am not sure whether I can cope with the smell of cigarette smoke pervading my home nor presenting such potential risks to my children.  

Many thanks in advance,

roze x


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## gerbera (Aug 4, 2008)

hi
It seems you are unhappy so I go with your gut instinct. I would worry less about the epilepsy and more about the smoking. I work with paeds nurses that have epilespy and have no restrictions on their practice as long as they are well controlled. The smoking is much more of a risk and this is what I would say is unacceptable to you when you talk to the college. There is evidence I think about clothes/hands etc (google it!) but to be honest I would just say you think its unacceptable for you and your family.
regards
andrea


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