Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Protect Children from Lyme Disease
Most parents are careful to use insect repellant on their children to prevent them from mosquito bites, but there is another insect that can cause even more serious infections. Parents should do their best to prevent bites from ticks that could cause Lyme Disease. If tick bites are left untreated, the infection from the bite can spread to the children’s joints, heart, and nervous system.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Lyme Disease bacterium usually lives in mice and squirrels and is transmitted to humans through the bites of the black-legged or deer ticks. Women who are pregnant when they are infected by a black-legged tick may lead to infection of the placenta, but antibiotic treatment is effective and there is no evidence that Lyme Disease can be transmitted through breast milk.
People with Lyme Disease should not donate blood until they have been successfully treated with antibiotics, because scientists have found that Lyme Disease bacteria can live in blood that is stored for donation.
Symptoms of Lyme Disease include:
- circular rash at the site of the bite that grows over several days
- fatigue
- chills
- fever
- headache
- muscle and joint aches
- loss of muscle tone in the face
- shooting pains
- heart palpitations
- dizziness due to changes in heartbeat
- pain that moves from joint to joint
- severe joint pain and swelling
If the tick is removed within 24 hours, infection may not occur. Most cases of Lyme Disease can be treated successfully with antibiotics and will cause no permanent harm to children. But prevention is a better strategy. These are steps parents can follow that will prevent their from from this serious infection:
- avoid areas with lots of ticks—wooded and bushy areas with lots of leaf litter
- avoid these areas especially in May, June, and July
- check with the local health department about tick infected areas to avoid
- use insect repellant with 20-30% DEET on skin and clothing or use Permethrin only on pants, socks, and shoes but not skin
- wear long pants, long sleeves, long socks
- wear light colored clothing to spot ticks easier
- tuck pants into shoes or boots or tape pants and socks together
- tuck shirts into pants
- check for ticks before going indoors
- wash clothes in hot water to kill any ticks you missed
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