To vaccinate newborn or not

Well you are lucky most other people had their kids vaccinated so yours stayed safe. Aren't you.

Have you benefitted from vaccines?
Why would you deny that same benefit to your baby?

Furthermore - your ‘explanation’ is patently stupid and not borne out by fact. If healthy food and clean water were the reason people abruptly stopped dying of measles, there would have to have been a substantial and sudden increase in people’s access to healthy food and clean water at the same time that the measles vaccine was rolled out in western nations for your explanation to be even remotely worthy of consideration, and yet we know that simply wasn’t the case.

You have the luxury of being comfortable with your son’s unvaccinated status because you know he is protected from these diseases by herd immunity as a result of many thousands of people making more informed and conscientious decisions than you have.

If you lived in a country where these diseases were still prevalent and living through the trauma of watching babies suffer and die around you, you would crawl through broken glass for the opportunity to vaccinate your son and save him from the same fate.

All I can say is, hooray for Mumsnet!
What an amazing bunch of women we are!
The advertising line should be 'better than google'

Sometimes I feel very low about the state of the NHS. I think we all know that healthcare could be better in some areas.

BUT the UK does well with vaccination. Vaccinations were developed to save lives and prevent disability and ill health. Childhood vaccination is an easy way to protect children.
And we live in a country where this is free and available for every child. This is an amazing part of NHS care in my opinion.
When my oldest child was born the MMR controversy was at its peak. I felt real doubt , but after doing my research and seeking advice from my Gp he had the MMR. As have my other children. So pleased I made this decision.

There’s no vaccine for cervical cancer. There’s a vaccine for HPV though.

I worked as a nanny for a very well real scientist. Who worked in research and development of vaccines for a very high profile company.

His children are all vaccinated, he is the reason we have cervical cancer vaccines. The reason we have malaria pills etc when did we turn against our amazing scientists? Please vaccinate your child, you are so privileged to live in a time when we can protect our children against horrendous diseases.

like I said further up the thread it’s not up to me to to anyone how to parent but a good parent vaccinates.

@Nanny0gg there is a chicken pox vaccine in UK, but it's not in included on the nhs. You have to find a provider and pay for it yourself. I did pay for ds1 to have the meningitis vaccine, as he was too old to get it on nhs and that can cause total devastation. I assumed that CP was mild, so didn't. I had it as a child, but at too young to remember, so I have no idea how badly I got it.

One of the mum’s in my baby group was struggling with the same decision, OP, but ultimately did vaccinate her little boy and is glad that she did now he’s starting to lick park slides and eat soil in the garden!

I think the reason you’re not finding ‘unbiased’ sources of research as you say is because the research is correct - vaccines ARE proven to be effective and DO help stave off any super nasty bugs that might not be much to an adult, but can wreak havoc on a tiny immune system. I know you must have hormones flying about all over the place and this overwhelming feeling of needing to protect baby from anything ‘other’ or that maybe you don’t quite understand, but this is a really easy way of protecting them from things you can’t control.

When we got DD vaccinated she screamed like a banshee, but I’m so glad we did. It’s a moment they won’t even remember, but if it keeps them healthy it’s worth it in gold. I’d vaccinate DD against the common cold if I could! 😅

There is a CP vaccination isn't there?

Although I don't know the reason why it isn't licensed in this country.

Anecdote: my father missed my 1st birthday because he was away in a sanatorium)

I don't think your posting was a bad thing.

My children were vaccinated and so were my grandchildren. No question about it.

But it is interesting and quite valuable reading the posts from those with experience and qualifications in the field.

Out of interest, did you get the whooping cough vaccine when you were pregnant OP?

OP I understand you wanting the best for your baby but there's a reason why these things are recommended and that's because they have been demonstrated to be the best approach in keeping children safe. The sane with the covid vaccinations, overall they were the best way of saving people's lives and protecting health. This modern belief that opinions have the same weight as facts is madness, everyone should be taught the fundamentals of critical analysis and stats to help them separate fact from fiction.

With all due respect you sound quite anxious over this, have you had wider health anxiety over your little one?

You can do your own research but what does that involve? A quick Google search doesn't cut it as research. Are you able to read, comprehend, analyse data, question methodology and understand results in context? If not then your 'research' is poor.

Ultimately it's your decision but vaccines can and do save lives. Having said all that I do understand that it is overwhelming when making serious decisions for your precious baby.

Again, “slightly” in scientific literature means nothing. It could be absolutely incidental. If something is thought to really reflect a difference, we would say “significantly”, which means appropriate statistic analysis concluded the results weren’t by chance.

My facts are not statistically significant. But my parents knew kids that died or were paralysed from polio. They knew people that were sent away to the sanatorium for months at a time to hopefully recover from TB. My nan was always sad to not have more children after my grandad returned from the san. I presume he was rendered infertile, although we never went into that level of detail. My mum remembers how awful it was when she got whooping cough.

My friends and I didn't experience any of this, because we were born after the invention of vaccines for common childhood ailments. I didn't lose a single friend to childhood contagious diseases. I do remember horror my friend felt when she caught measles age 12, as her mum was anti vaccines, and she had to come to school after covered in spots, just as hormones are in full flow.

As to whether they are a money making racket, the nhs is not for profit and don't do anything if they can't justify the cost. It's why we still don't have a chicken pox vaccine available and let the poor kids suffer through it instead. I was so angry when my then 1 year old got it so bad and it was entirely preventable.

I would reccomend researching the diseases that the vaccines are designed to protect against, and how they can impact babies and young children. That should help you balance the risks in your mind. These really are diseases that belong in past, and would no longer exist at all if everyone was vaccinated.

Edit: wanted to add that its totally normal to be anxious about these things and I think its always good to do research! I think understanding the other option of having your child at risk of these awful diseases is helpful!

If you can’t be arsed to read the full thread or at least read all the OPs posts which MN have made it super simple for you to do, then maybe you should refrain from adding your utterly pointless comments?