Today was the final session of Badger Babies, a 4 week postnatal course for parents of young babies we attend which is run at the local children's centre by our 2 fantastic health visitors. Our session today was a talk about common minor illnesses and when you should take your child to the doctors or hospital.

One of the illnesses we talked about was Meningitis, and the symptoms of this - such as the rash, floppiness, fever and light intolerance.

It actually reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine last week whose baby was born 4 weeks before J. Her baby was grisly, slightly unwell and generally off his food, but when she later changed his nappy she found a rash.

For any parent, finding a rash is very worrying but to put your mind at ease there is a simple glass test that can be performed. You press a clear glass against the rash and if it turns white then this is not the meningitis rash however if it does not turn white then this could be a sign of meningitis.

My friend did the glass test and it was positive - it did not fade to white when pressed. She rang her local GP surgery and they advised her to go into hospital. There her son was monitored overnight but fortunately it turned out to be just a virus and he was released the following day.

He was lucky, my best friend did have viral meningitis when she was a baby and was quite ill with it so it just goes to show you can never be too careful!