Child Day Care Health & Safety Regulations: A Comprehensive Guide

Day care centers must maintain strict health regulations in order to protect attending children. Some of these regulations apply to daily attendance, while others are part of the application and acceptance process into the program itself.

Vaccinations

• Children must be up-to-date with their shots and have doctors' records available as evidence when initially applying or when renewing their application each year.

Flu Vaccine

• Many day care centers require that attending children receive the flu vaccine by a certain month each year to ensure that the flu does not circulate among the children.

Daily Attendance

• Children will not be allowed to remain in the program on a day that they exhibit symptoms of illness, such as vomiting, diarrhea, severe cough, fever, lethargy or a yellow discharge from nose or eyes.

Diseases

• Day care centers require that they be notified when children are diagnosed with any kind of communicable diseases. They will require a doctor's note indicating when it is safe for the child to return to the center and what treatment is being administered.

Medical Release

• Parents must fill out an emergency release form that gives the center the authority to seek medical attention for a child in the case of an emergency or when the parent cannot be contacted.