I was considering getting a sandbox for Matthew in our backyard, but now I'm not so sure.

We live in the suburbs, however we have a greenbelt in the back of our house with lots of wildlife like, bunnies, raccoons, skunks etc.

I saw a story on the news last night and the city we live in has one of the highest urban populations of raccoons in North America. The story was about a child contracting Raccoon Round Worms they think from his backyard. He is 8 years old and was so devasted by this disease he now has the mental capacity of a one year old child and is almost completely blind. It was so sad. They mentioned in the story that the sandbox used to be by the back door. Apparently the disease is really hard to diagonsis in humans I guess because it's not really at the top of most physicians minds.

I know most sandboxes come with lids these days so I'm still not sure. Apparently 40-60% of adult raccoons have this parasite and almost 90% of young raccoons have it and the eggs can live in the soil for years. Children can ingest the worms by playing in infected soil and then putting their hands in their mouths.

I just wanted to pass this along for those who live in rural areas or urban areas with a high raccoon population and have small children.

By Tripletmom on Friday, May 19, 2006 - 04:17 pm:

I've never heard about that Thx for sharing.

I only ever used a sandbox with a lid and my DH would also put a brick on top to keep it down.Stray cats in the area would love to use it as a litter box.Becareful when you buy sand.You can do a sand test.If you mix a spoonful in a glass of water and the water remains cloudy once the sand settles its not good or if it makes a cloud of dust when you dump a pailful.We had to return 2 bags of play sand to Toys "R" Us about 5yrs ago.Some of this sand could have a type of asbestos called tremolite in it.