“Can babies get mono from parents?”

The short answer is yes, but mono in a baby appears quite different than mono in a teenager or a parent. Usually, mono in a baby looks like a cold. Sometimes there is a rash, but usually not. Like other causes of a cold in a baby, a mono cold eventually goes away with only a small chance of a complication from the cold, e.g., ear infection, sinus infection, or sore throat. You may remember that mono in an adolescent or adult is often called a kissing disease. The best way to protect a baby from a parent's mono is to not share saliva with the baby in all the obvious graphic ways you can imagine. Additionally, covering one's mouth when coughing using a tissue or the elbow-cough-covering technique is highly effective. And let's not forget frequent hand washing.
I hope that that this information helps.

Marc Tanenbaum, MD