New guidelines from state health officials recommend that children under 5 who appear to have flu like symptoms should stay home longer than previously recommended.
Lori Heim has four young children. Her newest is just 6 weeks old.
"It makes you nervous when you have such young, a young baby, and then you have kids that are in school," says Heim.
Like every other child, Heim's are in the high-risk group for H1N1.
Now state health officials say if kids under 5 get sick, they need to stay at home for at least 7 days after flu symptoms appear, or 24 hours after symptoms go away--whichever is longer.
"There will be parents who'll need to stay home with their sick kids," says Heim.
It won't be easy for parents who'll need to take time off work.
Dr. Robin Molella from Mayo Clinic says even though there will be challenges, we shouldn't take these precautions lightly.
"All of us are going to use as much common sense as we can to try to get through this," says Molella.
She recommends using preventative measures as much as possible.
"With infants and other kids who haven't learned yet, parents can be washing hands and rubbing noses to get away any dripping into the nose and eyes, and making sure they throw those tissues away and then they want to make sure they wash their hands after they've done that," she said.
"Hopefully it won't hit us at home," says Heim.
She says her family has been taking extra precautions.
She runs her own business and says, luckily, she can take time off if she needs to.
But she does have employees and says she'll have to make exceptions if any of them call in with a sick child.
"If need be I can find coverage, just hopefully they'll use precautions and it won't hit hard," says Heim.
Health officials say the state's new guidelines are more protective than federal ones because the state is at higher risk of severe illness from the H1N1 virus.
These recommendations come just one day after the state reported "widespread" flu activity.
source: kaaltv
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