to consider single vaccinations over the MMR when mumps is not available?

[MsKalo]

I had my ds vacinated with single jabs - at the time he had the jabs, all three, measles, mumps and rubella were available. Now it is the time to vaccinate my dd and mumps vaccine is not available and I am unsure how to proceed as I really do not like the thought of the MMR and that big hit of all 3 in one...

Anyone had bad experiences with MMR? Any doctors in the house willing to give an unbiased (ie: not all pro MMR!)opinion?

We may go ahead with the measles and rubella and the chicken pox as there is not mumps vac available or should I just think about the MMR

DECISIONS! AGHHH!

scroobious- because i don't want to give my ds a jab he doesn't need.

ds cought it from another child at softplay when he was 19mo, there are plenty of children going around unimmunised so women need to make sure they themselves are immune rather than relying on herd immunity.

i kept ds in as soon as the rash appeared, and for 10 days after it went, and we had been stuck in the house for a week before the rash appeared so he was no risk to pregnant women.

MsKalo. I recommend that you research mumps. Look at number of cases, risk of complications etc. I think you will find it reassuring. Mumps is usually a mild childhood disease. Fwiw there is NO evidence, despite popular belief,that mumps causes sterility even if contracted in adulthood. You could always consider having your DS's antibodies levels tested before he reaches puberty and make the decision then. 15-20 % of mumps cases are completely asymptomatic so he may have had it already without you noticing! You've obviously spent time and money researching your decision to give singles so it would seem a shame to be forced into the mmr for the sake of mumps.

Bubbleymummy - there is evidence of subfertility (including infertility) correlated to incidence of mumps in childhood. Around 30% of teenage boys who get mumps get infected testes, some of whom will go on to suffer subfertility or infertility. There is no guarantee that a child will gain natural exposure to the virus in the meantime.

You are right that mumps is often a mild virus. But not always - it can have some really horrid symptoms, as purplewednesday has already pointed out.

I beleive here is also evidence that mumps is being pushed into the young adult population possibly because the mumps part of MMR isn't as effective long term as hoped. So whilst worries about infertility may be relevant it may not be a positive indicator for having MMR at a young age.

MsK - it's a difficult, and very personal decision and I wish you luck with it. I'm glad mine had MMR before all the furore about it because I'm not sure what decision I would make today.

I think this line in the OP says you've already made your mind up. "Any doctors in the house willing to give an unbiased (ie: not all pro MMR!)opinion?"

You've already discounted all pro MMR statements as biased so I don't think anyone can persuade you otherwise even though all the evidence clearly indicates the vaccine is not a risk.

Parents who don't get their children vaccinated are irresponsible. The effectiveness of vaccines relies on herd immunity and if people opt out, they pose a risk to those who have had the vaccines. Why do you think no-one gets polio anymore in the UK? Because everybody has the vaccine. Why has there been an increase in measles in recent years? Because people have chosen not to have the MMR. Get it done.

It is very important to do the research and make a decision for your own child.

I would advise being very wary of people who tell you anything in absolute terms either way ie you MUST have it done, you MUST NOT have it done.

The MMR jab is what it is. It does pose a very small risk as does every vaccine, medicine and illness we know of. This risk is exaggerated in certain groups of children.

dippywhentired, herd immunity is a very important consideration but not the deciding factor for all families.

Mumps is really not very nice. I am of the generation who (not sure why exactly) only got MR arather than MMR and when I was at university there was an outbreak of mumps - it was really not something I would want to leave my DD vulnerable to.

Why herd immunity is a good thing: www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20020430-10391704.html

10 babies dead from whooping cough in California because around them aren't vaccinated, and thus able to pass the virus along to them. (they weren't of age to be vaccinated, hence why herd immunity would have helped to save them) It's 2010 and children are dying of whooping cough.

It's very difficult. To go and have the MMR now after going the single vaccine route makes a mockery of everything I thought then. But, as DD is so much older now, what seemed unthinkable when she was 13 months doesn't seem as scary now. She's that much older and more robust.

What a surprise .. along come the pro pro vaxers with their "FFS" and the implication that anyone who disagrees is beyond stupid.

Totally incapable of sensible argument -- and what a pile of utter, utter drivel and rot from purplewednesday.

I vaccinated my ds against chicken pox and would be interested to see how many people in favour of the MMR bother to ^do chicken pox which can be far worse than mumps. Having read about how some women will wait to give rubella when dd is in her teens, this may be an idea - after all that is how it used to be...

I do appreciate everyones view on this but there does seem to be a bit of u must do mmr going on!

Appletrees - I am talking about scientific evidence, not some anecdotal crap found on the internet. There is no 'sensible argument' against vaccinating. It is the safest way to protect your child (and everybody else's!). Yes, there may be possible side-effects, as there are with every drug/vaccine, but weighed against the potentially devastating consequences of the diseases themselves, it is the only option.
By all means, have the single vaccines if they're available and you can pay for it, but not having them at all is totally irresponsible and selfish.

It is absolutely not selfish to think of your own child's health. That's a cruel and unnecessary thing to say. There are certain (albeit rare) scenarios where the consequences of vaccination are potentially as devastating as the diseases themselves.

There is a sensible argument why some children should not have vaccinations. And certainly there is a large gap between those who don't vaccinate at all (again sometimes for v good reasons) and those that want the option to vaccinate in a way more suited to their particular child.

Sweeping generalisations and criticisms just don't help people to make decisions about their children's health.

I really feel for you having to make this descision. At the time I had to do it it was undoubtably the biggest descision I had had to make as a parent and it's so hard!

There is no need to critisise the OP for the way she is thinking about this, she is just trying to do what's best for her dc, as we all are.

My children both had single vaccines, six months apart, and then six months after that were given a blood test to check their immunity. Ds 1 was completely immune to all three after the one jab, ds2 was immune to measles and mumps but not rubella. Because we were paying a huge amount of money to have the single vaccines, he was able to be vaccinated against rubella again, well before the age he would have got an MMR booster, which has hopefully worked. I decided not to have the blood test again, because if he had shown again not to be immune, I wouldn't have wanted him jabbed three times, and the peadiatrician advised that if he wasn't becoming immune to the vaccine, then he may have a natural protection against it anyway. Plus he had had all the protection he would have got from the MMR at an earlier date and without having to re inject him with vaccines he simply didn't need.

The main reasons I went for single vaccines were that I didn't want the MMR put into my dc's twice when they only really needed it once. I understand that they do it twice to protect a tiny percentage of children that didn't get immunity first time round, but that wasn't a good enough reason to jab my sons twice with something they didn't need.

Also, at the time, Dr Wakefield had not been completely discredited. Whether he was rightly or wrongly struck off, I don't know, but his study was, and still is, the only study to have looked at the children whose parents blame the MMR for their child's autism. That says something to me. The parents who are convinced their child was harmed truly believe that, and it's not like they are saying it just for fun.

I think in your situation OP, I would still not give the MMR. I wish you lots of luck with whatever you decide.

Of the 'baby group' I belonged to there was one child that reacted badly to all the standard vaccines as they were given. Whereas other babies might have had a bit of a grumpy night and a spoon of Calpol this particular little girl was very poorly on each occasion.

When it came time for MMR I and the other mums were happy to go with it because our rationale was that our children were not 'big reactors'... and, true to form, they didn't react to MMR. The mum of the baby that reacted badly to every jab had a dilemma...whether to go for one big combo jab and potentially risk one big combo reaction... or whether to go for separate ones and have the child sick three times. She opted for the latter... nothing to do with the autism scare stories.

So, based on my experience, I would say that if your child historically has had minor reactions to other vaccines there would be no reason not to go with MMR second time around.

Scroobious - I wasn't suggesting that the Government should pay for the single jabs. But as a supposedly 'free' nation I do feel they have a responsibility to protect our rights to freedom of choice (i.e. put a toe up the backsides of those who should be supplying/manufacturing the mumps vaccine or finding an alternative single vaccine), even if we have to pay for those rights out of our own pockets.

scroobious _i'd be interested to read that if you can link to it. Certainly the information I've read, and I'm pretty sure it's on the HPA website states that while mumps can occasionally lead to orchitis(swelling of the testes) and more frequently this only occurs in one- that there is nothing to prove that this causes sterility. The mumps part of mmr is, iirc, about 60% effective and wears off, leaving young adults vulnerable. Hence, the outbreaks of mumps in universities etc.

Anyway, OP, read about it and see how you feel.

I can't really add much that hasn't already been said tbh, other than to say that I too am wary of the MMR. I've seen a child who is severely 'vaccine damaged' from having it (the son of a close friend), and therefore it naturally concerns me.

Are most children okay when having it? Yes. Are all children okay? No. The same can be said of virtually everything in life, but it seriously pisses me off to hear people blindly supporting something that does cause harm (even though I completely acknowledge that it is a minority of cases that this is relevant to). There are obvious reasons to be unsure about this vaccine and therefore comments like 'FFS' and those that deem parents to be 'irresponsible' for not getting the jab, are unhelpful at best.

well said tainted. It bothers me that the same people who will argue that the MMR is safe for the majority do not accept that mumps itself is mild for the majority.

Dippywhentired I would be very interested to know if you have had your children vaccinated against chicken pox as it seems you have a strong opinion on going for the MMR? By the way I don't say that horribly, entitled to ur opinion and I thank u for sharing it! Just wondered...

By the way to the people who worry about the mumps booster for single vacs, from what I know from the clinic I took my ds, only measles needs a booster not the other two x

Mumps is usually very mild and often symptom free for many kids. It can be really vile as an adult though.

The risk of orchitis - swelling of testicles - is very rare. As a result, infertilty caused by orchitis is even rarer.

There's always lots of ranting on vac threads. It's weird.

I guess if your children have reacted badly to other vaccines (which a very small minority do) or have medical problems then I can see the argument for not vaccinating but otherwise I just see it as selfish.

Your child could get a disease which they could then pass on to someone who can't be vaccinated and it could have very nasty effects/ be fatal (not with mumps in this case but with a lot of the others)in that person. I've lost someone close to me to a disease that is routinely vaccinated against because the herd immunity wasn't enough (and his immune system physically couldn't cope with the vaccine due to other problems) so I am not impartial with this but I don't think anyone is 100% impartial.

For what its worth I had the MMR as a child and had the booster 2 years ago and have never had a problem with either of them. My university sent out letters to all new freshers asking people to check they were immune because they had had outbreaks of mumps and measles the previous year. The only vaccination I have ever had a bad reaction to is the Tetanus vaccine which is never one of the ones people worry about, I'd still get my own kids immunised though, the risk of the illness is much greater than the risk of the vaccine for the vast majority of children.

Read 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre, it cuts through a lot of the crap about MMR.