Measles … I don’t understand!

Don't worry @dol1 you've done the right thing in getting the first one and it will offer good protection. The media posts are there not to scare you but to rightfully bring the conversation up and urge people to vaccinate their children, but understandably it worries all parents! X

I like your point of reference!

Yes they did, but believe what you want

Wouldn't the broader context of this be "only measles and not small pox"?

Small pox had a fatality rate of at least 30% but is thankfully now eradicated because of comprehensive vaccinations.

Xpost!

Is it not measles that resets the immune system and makes you vulnerable to other infections?

Measles is usually mild but it knocks out your immunity to other conditions.

asm.org/articles/2019/may/measles-and-immune-amnesia#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20unique,a%20process%20called%20immune%20amnesia.

some things yes and other things no. But almost always to a lesser degree.

For example, whooping cough vaccine antibodies get through the placenta (not breastmilk) to offer SOME protection.

Breast milk antibodies are great for general health and immune system but is in no way effective for measles.

This has to be utter bollocks. I've heard of this kind of thing for chicken pox but never measles. Even in books from the 1950s quarantine for measles is used as a plot device to get kids away from their parents so that they can have adventures, Tom's Midnight Garden, Enid Blyton etc.
Now, of course, quarantine isn't really a thing in the same way so authors simply kill of the parents of the child hero.

Im probably around the same age as your mum. The measles vaccine was bought in 1968, not sure what age i was but queued up at school to get the vaccine as part of the catch up programme but because of an abnormal history of febrile convulsions in my family (now know as GEFS+) i was not allowed to have the vaccine. When i was 8 or 9 (early 70s) i caught measles and actually was really unwell. There is also evidence of a weakened immune system for up to 3 years after measles. I was really ill with recurring tonsilitis the year after and ended up having them removed

We had a letter from the local council to say that we were under quarantine.
Also children in measles were kept in the dark because of the worry that their sight would be affected. There were also plates in all the library books that if you had measles etc in the household you were not allowed to bring the books back for a while.
If you look at the numbers something like a 800 children died of measles in the 60s which doesnt always include deaths which are the consequences of measles.

If you read some older children's novels you get a realistic idea of how measles was regarded. In "Tom's Midnight Garden" Tom is sent to stay with an aunt when his sibling has measles to maintain quarantine.

In "The family from one end street" a case of measles in the family means all the Ruggles children are in quarantine and do not even go to school.

My mum is 85. Her best friend died from measles and a classmate was left deaf. Nobody had measles parties. Nobody .

Chicken pox parties, yes. Measles? No. Parents were scared of measles because it could and did kill healthy children, and so quarantining infected kids was expected. A lass in my year at school was deaf due to measles. The current drop in vaccination is concerning.

Get vaccinated if your kiddies aren't. There's no conspiracy is there... a family member didn't want her child to have any jabs or medicine because of numerous conspiracy theories but then the babbie was born with serious complications and they had to let the doctors take over or ss would be involved

I'm 66 and can remember my older brother being extremely ill with measles - and my mother trying desperately hard to prevent me catching it from him by shipping me off immediately to my grandparents up the road.

It didn't work and I was already infected but thankfully, was not as ill as my brother had been.

I do remember "chicken pox parties" but my mother wasn't having any of that, either.

Maybe a doctor/nurse can confirm... I thought antibodies were passed in breast milk? So for the first few months, assuming mum is vaccinated, baby will piggyback off her immunity until they are vaccinated?

I had measles when still a baby in the 50s, it left me with permanently poor eyesight, it was closely followed by chicken pox, as my sister had just started school, and brought home all the infections! Thank goodness for the vaccination programme! I can't believe that parents are just letting all the advantages fall by the wayside. Childhood used to be blighted with constant illnesses which swept through schools, causing disruption to education, and children often debilitated for a while, if not permanently damaged. My mother was not a believer in parties to spread these illnesses as she had lived through the 20s and 30s when children still often died from them, including her own little brother.

Im a 60's child and got every vaccination going. We all got German measles ( Rubella ) as kids and chicken pox, little sister got scarlet fever. Everyone was scared of measles

Although we didnt have chicken pox parties, we weren't quarantined and if we were well enough we still played with our friends. I got the chicken pox first in our family and I was very poorly for weeks, my sisters sailed through it .

This is dangerous nonsense. Measles can be extremely serious in ANYONE. It can cause serious neurological complications like hearing loss and rarely be fatal. Deaths in Europe are sadly increasing due to people choosing not to vaccinate.

That’s terrible. My child also had measles before his vaccine but the GP asked us to sit in the car whilst she waited for Public Health to return her call.

I was born before there was the option to be vaccinated against measles. I caught measles when I was 5 and was extremely ill. I never heard of anyone in those days (early 1960s) having measles parties, most people understood how serious it was.

Oh and when we was home I still had to take my eldest to school. I called the school to explain I had a baby with measles. Could I please drop my child off later and pick him up earlier to avoid other parents mainly the ones with new babies. Nope. Just come in as usual.

I wasn't impressed.

“FatherConfesserTheGuesser · Today 07:46
curious79 · Today 07:23
And if she does get it in all likelihood, she’ll be absolutely fine. It is immunocompromised and already unwell kids who fare badly from measles. When I was growing up our parents would literally take us to peoples houses when they had measles so we could all catch it and be done with it.
This is dangerous bollocks .

You are thinking of chicken pox (which still can be dangerous, I vaccinated mine against it)

Three in a thousand who contract measles will die, it kills perfectly healthy children. It is an awful disease.”

Completely this. @curious79, I really think you are thinking of chickenpox where parents were relaxed about their DCs catching it (and when my dad caught it as an adult, he was extremely ill so there was very good reason for trying to create immunity in that fashion). I remember “chickenpox parties”.

I have never known parents try to get their children to catch measles. I was born in 1969 and my sister was born a couple of years later. I was vaccinated against measles but due to an intervening, swiftly proved to be unfounded scare about the vaccine, my DSIS was not. She was (and remains) perfectly healthy. But she caught measles at school and was desperately feverish and ill with it for about 2 weeks. Mum told me many years later that she had thought DSIS might die and she felt awful for not having got her vaccinated.

@dol1 - as PP have said, your DD already has great protection and almost certainly won’t contract it but if she does the vaccination will mean that she gets a much milder version.

Are you confusing measles with chicken pox?

This.