http://www.fridayschildmontessori.com/blog/measles What parents should know about Measles? Measles is a common childhood disease. It is important to know how children get it, how to treat it, and how to cope with the symptoms.

1. An Introduction to Measles
By: www.fridayschildmontessori.com

2. “The cat’s got the measles, the measles,
the measles. The cat’s got the measles –
cross your legs, you’re out.”

3. This rhyme was interesting not just
because it was a new one for me and it
was neither a skipping rhyme nor a
handclap game or even a rhyme for
initiating the start of a handstand
contest (all action games I played at
school),

4. but because it contained a reference to
a childhood illness that an awful lot
of children these days only encounter
measles in old-fashioned stories.

5. Incidentally, just in case you didn’t
know this rhyme either and you want to
give your children a new action game to
play, my daughter’s game went like
this: you stand in a group in a rough
circle and chant the rhyme.

6. As you chant, you jump so your legs are
apart as you land the first time then so
you’ve got your ankles crossed the
second time, then so you land with legs
uncrossed, etc.

7. If you finish the rhyme with your legs
crossed, you’re out. Continue until
there’s only one person left in.

8. Anyway, back to the measles.

9. The measles we’re talking about here
are English Measles.

10. German Measles are also known as
Rubella and they’re another story.

11. The majority of parents who send their
children to early childhood centres,
including our Friday’s Child
Montessori, have had their children
vaccinated as babies against measles.

12. Here in Australia, the vaccines against
the measles are given at the ages of 12
months and 18 months (yes, you
need two shots of the vaccine to be fully
immunised).

13. For those who have come over the
Tasman from New Zealand, the
vaccination programme in that country
is to give the measles vaccine at 15
months and 4 years.

14. This means that if you’re one of the
many parents who has immigrated to
Australia from New Zealand when their
children are at preschool age, your
child might not be fully vaccinated.

15. This would be the case if your child got
the 12-month shot in New Zealand and
you then moved over here to the Gold
Coast when your child was three years
old – too young for the second vaccine
in New Zealand but too old for the
second one over here.

16. If this is your situation, whether or not
you go to our Montessori preschool
yet or whether you’re just reading this
article out of general interest, then see
your GP and get this situation dealt
with.

17. At one stage, some well-meaning but
probably misinformed people
believed and promoted the idea that the
measles vaccine caused autism.

18. Or, to put it in more scientific terms,
that the measles vaccination increased
children’s risk of autism.

19. However, this proved to be
scaremongering, to a large extent. A lot
of parents opted not to vaccinate their
children against measles because of this
perception of risk.

20. You can guess what happened. The
autism rate didn’t go down
noticeably, but measles outbreaks are
happening thanks to those children
who haven’t been vaccinated.

21. Australia has quite a good track
record when it comes to measles, and
this disease has practically been wiped
out over here thanks to the intense
vaccination programme.