To vaccinate newborn or not

lol people still think mmr causes ASD? 😂

My son is autistic and he is amazing. No way did vaccines cause that. Personally I’m really glad he isn’t dead.

Very well said! Seeing dying of measles as the ‘lesser of two evils’ against asd is disgusting. As yes maybe the mmr scare made people hesitate, but when it was all cleared up why not go and get the Jab the following year! There are some poor kids who can’t be vaccinated, for whom these diseases will be deadly, who rely on the rest of us to keep them safe. We have responsibility to our own kids and the wider community to get vaccinated

People like you disgust me. I don't often say things as extreme as this on Mumsnet, but I'll make an exception for this. You rely on enough of the rest of us to vaccinate our children for the risk to your children to be fairly low. That's how you got away with not vaccinating your children against killer diseases like whooping cough, diphtheria, polio and measles. How would you have lived with yourself if any of your children had died of a preventable disease because you didn't have them vaccinated?

And before anybody starts on with the 'oh but it looked like MMR caused autism' (a) it didn't, not once the full facts were out in the open and (b) I have a child on the autism spectrum. Yes, she's had problems as a result. With hindsight, they were in evidence before she had the MMR and bad as things can get with ASD, it's incredibly insulting to those of us who have ASD children or who are on the spectrum to say that it's better to risk death or severe disability than risk having a child with ASD.

The Oxford Vaccine Knowledge Project website is a good resource. Has information on each vaccine, ingredients, side effects etc

People can be real dicks. I think the OP is a scared mum seeking reassurance. No need for some to pile on her.

I am a hospital consultant and know with public health messaging, you have far better results if you listen to concerns, answer and inform. Than if you call people idiots, belittle them and mock them. Especially if they are simply anxious rather than an aggressive antivaxxer.

And some people are really wound up by the word ‘research’ used by the OP. It’s perfectly reasonable to use it as a euphemism for ‘look into’. I ‘researched’ car seats. I didn’t conduct randomised controlled trials on them.

I am glad you decided to vaccinate your baby OP. It is the right decision.

@triballeader How awful for you all. I was always told you can't catch measles twice. I do hope your DH gets strength and health back as much as possible.

This

Agree but this made me laugh out loud

Do you like your baby?
If yes, vaccinate them.

Oh look, it’s the thread police with a pointless comment. 🙄

GCSE Science??!?!?!?!

A vaccine is a dead or weakened form of a virus put into your body and allows the body to "learn" how to defend against this virus in future.

Stable viruses like measles etc... can then be avoided after a vaccine as the body can fight the pathogen if it enters the body so the person does not get ill.

Flu and Covid are viruses that mutate so although the vaccine will contain antigens that will fight that exact pathogen, the virus will have then mutated so your body can fight it as a similar pathogen but not quite the same, so less effective so you get ill while the body fights.

That's why you have to have booster jabs which have more up to date antigens based on the latest mutation.

Covid vaccinations have been incredibly well tested - now more than any other vaccine available, given that billions of people have received them over a period of three years. They were based on well-established and thoroughly tested technologies which had been tested for over 15 years, so we have a pretty good idea about long term effects. No vaccine is immune from side effects, but the relevant developers have monitored their use regularly and have issued warnings where required.

The statistics demonstrate that these vaccines have prevented thousands of deaths and other serious covid-related illnesses. If you don't think covid is a serious illness, have a look at what happened to Derek Draper and think about whether you would wish that on your daughter.

My DD recovered and went back to school after five weeks.
Husband sadly did not get away with it but he could easily have died so I am grateful he is still with me even with some of the limitations.

I urge you to get your child vaccinated it saves lives.

My friend narrowly missed out on getting the HPV vaccine & died. She campaigned during her final months to encourage people to get vaccinated.

I know the thought of seeing your baby getting an vaccine is scary, but it only hurts them for a second & prevents life changing & fatal illnesses.

They will thank you in the future ❤️

You know what often happened before childhood vaccinations? This.

OP I hope you get some clarity. Being a mum to a tiny little being is hard (just because lots of us have been there, doesn't mean it isn't hard) and the responsibly can weigh so heavily.

@Fidgety31 "I chose not to vaccinate as my first was born in the midst of the MMR controversy- which unless you had a baby at that time - it’s hard to explain how difficult it was ."

Why didn't you have your children vaccinated when Andrew Wakefield was proved to be a charlatan? That's what I did at the same time.

@triballeader I am so sorry your dh went through that. sounds terrifying. was your dd able to recover fully?

My youngest DD could not have vaccinations on strong hospital medical advice. She has no choice but to rely on herd immunity from others.
Whilst under ortho-oncology (benign but large bone tumours) she caught measles. No idea where or how but she did. (I have attached a photo of her arm showing a typical measles rash)

She was very poorly and spent nearly three weeks with a very high fever in a dark room (doctors advised). Trouble was her slightly odd immune system amped up the virus and she then gave it to her dad. He HAD had measles before so offered to look after our DD at night so I could grab some sleep.
He caught measles from her and OMG a I have never seen anyone become so ill so fast.
He was so ill the GP wanted to send an ambulance. Our family was already on home isolation as my DD was a confirmed case and I did not want to take an ambulance and team out of circulation for a deep clean. I drove him through the night to the regional hospital and refused to take him into A&E to avoid causing a serious regional outbreak.
He was admitted to the regional isolation unit and placed in to negative pressure isolation. His oxygen sats crashed, his liver started to fail, blood pooled under his skin, he lost his sight and his fever stayed well over 42C no matter what the hospital tried to bring it down. All they could do was offer supportive care. He was not expected to make it and I was called in to say that goodbye. His life hung for a week before his fever dropped down to 40c. No one could be sure if that fever would leave him with a brain injury.
His recovery was slow. He could not do any work for six months. All he could do once home was sleep and cry. I had to do everything for him. After six months he started to improve. He regained some sight but his eyes are still damaged and he lives with the longer term effects of measles on his internal organs.

This is why the NHS advises vaccination for those who can have vaccinations. Yes vaccinations carry a small potential risk but it’s one hell of a lot less than the risks of the nasty viruses they aim to give us all some protection from.

Neither. There is another possibility ...

(I am reminded of that special circle of hell reserved for ironists, where they sit, condemned to be taken literally for all eternity .)

Much like getting into a car or crossing a road. Nothing is ever 100% safe. But it's clear the benefits outweigh the risks.

I wonder whether the temptation to not vaccinate comes from how humans perceive threats.

If we are actively choosing something (a vaccine) it can seem a more risky activity than the do nothing option, just because we are an active agent.

If we do nothing (don't vaccinate) and something bad happens (disease is contracted) we can kid ourselves that it wasn't our responsibility. It doesn't feel so much like our fault.

If we actively do something, and the teeny tiny microscopic chance of an adverse outcome happens, we know for sure that it was partly due to our decision. Our brains can take this and use it to skew how we perceive risks (just like we perceive new things as more risky, or things we do frequently as less risky than they actually are).

I think it might be that sense of responsibility that weighs heavily on parents. But this interpretation is massively skewed because all the evidence is there in black and white, that vaccinating saves lives and is one of the safest choices you can make for your kids.

Everything we do comes with a risk attached - every time you take your kids out in the car you're taking a risk - but it's a small one and it's almost certainly worth taking.

Vaccination is similar.

What's the source of your info about the covid vaccine?

By what mechanism can it lesson the symptoms but not also make you less likely to catch it.