Medical Minute: Skin Infections From Bounce Houses

In today's Medical Minute, we're looking at a hidden danger in inflatable jumping structures, or bounce houses, that are popular for kids' birthday parties.

Allison Snyder's son has been healing after getting a skin infection a few days ago. The boy isn't the only one to suffer though. His mom, Allison Snyder, says more than a dozen kids had the same issue after they all played on a bouncy house at their church.

"I had talked to some of the other people at church, and their kids as well, started breaking out in these sores all over their body. The only common denominator that they all had was that they were all in the bouncy house," said Snyder.

Snyder took her boy to the hospital to get checked out. While there, the doctor said they weren't the first family to show up with the same infection. She got the same reaction from her pharmacist when she went to pick up the antibiotic the doctor prescribed.

Reporter: Did the doctor say whether they thought that it may be from a lack of cleaning on the bouncy house, or if they thought it may be an infected child that kind of spread it on there, to begin with?

"They personally thought based on how many kids had all got it at the same time from different locations. They thought it would be more likely it would be from a bouncy house, but it was also said that a kid could have had it and gave it to other kids. But it seemed less likely with that happening to that many kids from that many different bouncy houses at the same time," Snyder said.

So, it's not known whether it was a lack of cleaning or if a sick child spread the infection into the bounce house.

Mercy Health Physician Tamara Huson says it's up to parents to keep a sick child out of the fun.

"If there's a kiddo that goes in with something, that's viral, like hand, foot and mouth, same thing. You'll have little sores and things like that. And they're all over the bounce house, all over the other kids. Everyone's touching, they're all touching the walls, and they're all bouncing around in there. Absolutely, you can get sick, the kiddos can get sick," Dr. Huson with Mercy Health said.

No matter what caused it, Snyder hopes this can be a warning to other parents to keep an eye out after your child plays in a bounce house or anything where a lot of kids will be touching the same surfaces.

"Please check your kids. You know, maybe if before you run a bouncy house, just make sure they've cleaned it very good. We just don't want this happening to other children, because we know that at least 38 people that have it right now," Snyder said.