My child's cheeks seem puffy. Could he have mumps?
It's unusual for a child in the United States to get mumps, but it can happen, especially if he has never received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Even if your child has been vaccinated, it's still possible to catch this highly contagious virus, because the vaccine isn't 100 percent effective.
Because it usually affects the salivary glands in the cheeks, mumps most often shows up as swelling and soreness in the area below the ears and along the jawline. The swelling may appear on one or both sides of the face. Sometimes one side puffs up several days before the other.
Other infections (like a parainfluenza virus or bacterial infection) and conditions (like the obstruction of a salivary gland) can cause similar swelling.
Your child may run a fever and complain that it hurts to swallow or talk. He may have a headache or earache and a loss of appetite.
It's also possible for your child to have mumps without the typical jawline swelling. It could show up as a respiratory tract infection, in which case he'd have typical cold symptoms. Or you might not notice any symptoms at all. (In this instance, your child has a mild case that will simply resolve on its own.)
How common is this disease?
Mumps used to be one of the common illnesses of childhood, but thanks to the MMR vaccine, it's now rare in the United States. In 1968, before the vaccine became available, 100,000 to 200,000 cases were diagnosed each year. Now fewer than 1,000 cases are identified a year — most of them in unvaccinated school-age children and kids who have traveled to foreign countries.
Outbreaks are still possible, however. In 2006, for example, over 5,000 cases were reported in the United States, many of them among college students.
What are the possible complications?
Complications are rare, but once in a while the mumps virus affects other parts of the body, causing inflammation of the brain (encephalitis) or the covering of the brain and spinal cord (meningitis), inflammation of the pancreas, or hearing loss.
One of the most feared complications of mumps is orchitis, a painful inflammation of the testes, which can — though it rarely does — cause infertility. While orchitis is possible at any age, it hardly ever occurs in boys younger than 10. (In girls past the age of puberty, mumps can cause a similar inflammation of the ovaries, but it isn't linked to sterility.)