Do rats bite sleeping babies?

Introduction
Rats are a common nuisance and once in the house, they will multiply within a very short period of time such that controlling them becomes very hard and time consuming. Rat bites are not very common. However, the rats will display aggression when they are threatened and may bite, fight or even do the unimaginable – chasing the instigator. Funny Right? For the urban rats, most of them live in a very close proximity to the humans. Their activities usually start when the humans are asleep. Unexpected interference may lead to the animal becoming aggressive.

Do rats bite?
It is a question that I get at most of the times. Yes they do bite! Unprovoked rats have also been known to occasionally creep up on the sleeping bed and take a bite on our skin. However, for the adults, this is usually not common, however, children fall a victim of the rat bites. The reason why the animals attack children is that most of the time, they fall asleep having some food residual in their persons. This attracts the rats and the biting happens.

The possibility of infections
In most cases, the rat bites are not very much severe. And in most cases, this chances of infection is usually very low. Just about 2%. In case you notice that your child has been bitten, the standard treatment would be washing the wound and keeping it dry. In rare cases, there have been reported cases of diseases being transmitted to the bitten individual. These are;

• Rat bite fever or simply the rat pox. This could be transmitted from the infected rat to the bitten individual.
• The saliva of the rats could contain some of the hazardous diseases like the leptospirosis. However, it is good to point out that not every species contains this, however, for most infected rats, this could be transferred to the child.
• Rodents bites in most of the cases make the human susceptible to contracting many infectious diseases including being susceptible to tetanus infections.

These are the possibility of the humans contracting the infections from the rats.

The appearance of a rat bite
It may appear shallow or deep and in some other times, the bites could appear as a single puncture wound or even multiple abrasions. More commonly, the bleeding could occur. Common symptoms include pain or irritation, redness and swelling. Secondary infection could be pus-filled wounds.

Conclusion
Even though the rat bites are not that severe in nature, it is best that as a person you make sure that the rats are not gaining access to your home. In case you realize that your baby has been bitten, take the baby to a physician for a comprehensive check up.