| Re: What precautions to take around family.
Actually, herpes is a virus, so antibacterial soap won't affect it any more than any other soap; but herpes is very sensitive to soap and is killed easily. Of course you should wash your hands after touching or applying medication to your sores, whether you will be around children or not. Even without soap, however, the virus dies quickly as it dries in air, so after a few minutes, as long as your fingers have dried, you could not transfer it.
If you use the correct amount of chlorine in your pool, you need not worry. But I have read that they have cultured herpes from wet towels and chairs near a poolside. If I had a pool (lucky you!), I would designate one chair and one certain towel as mine, and explain to the children that you have a kind of disease, so they should not use these.
I'm not sure about hot tubs. I suppose the heat would kill the germs, but you may want to do some research to know for sure. Perhaps someone else here knows.
Inside, I do have a certain pattern of towel and washcloth that only I use. However, if your towel and washcloth dry before someone else uses them, the other person still could not get herpes; the virus would have all died.
The laundry detergent will kill any virus that may have survived on damp clothes, but probably all the virus is dead by the time you get around to washing them!
If your daughter contracted herpes at birth, you would know it. Babies don't have a developed immune system and herpes can ravage them. I had one baby by Caesarean while at the end of my primary ob, and another vaginally two and a half years later. They are 15 and 12, respectively, and very healthy, no herpes, no other health problems, either.
You actually can pass h on when you have no symptoms (or, perhaps, just very mild symptoms that you may not notice), so I myself probably wouldn't take baths with them in nonchlorinated water. You can also pass it on a couple days before the sore appears (usually I'll get some skin sensitivity down one of my legs, and the next day an irritated feeling in my crotch, like a seam has rubbed me wrong) and a few days after the signs of a sore have disappeared.
If you have oral herpes--cold sores--then you do have to be careful about sharing silverware, cups, etc. If you have only genital herpes, then you don't need to worry about it.
Hope that helps. The more you read on this board, the more you will learn all this stuff. I know it seems confusing now, but if you follow a few simple rules, you will keep your kids safe.
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