For thinking i shouldn't be getting constantly pestered by the local nurse and GP team to get my daughter immunises when i've repeatedly told them my answer is no?

[Lowla]

My daughter is 4. She got all her jabs as a baby, but i stopped at the MMR one. Since we missed the appointment, i've been getting loads of letters to invite us to the clinic for the MMR jab and now her school booster jab for some other virus. (Hib or something like that).

I've phoned the GP and asked them not to send any more letters out as i've chosen not to get her immunised any further for my own personal reasons, and worries over her last reactions to the jabs. And now i've got some nurse calling me asking to do a home visit next week to 'check on me and dd'. I asked 'is this about the jabs?' and she said, rather reluctantly, 'yes'.

AIBU for feeling like they should respect my decision?

Sorry for the bad grammar. Writing this in a rush as i have to run and get dd from school.

Your post doesnt make sense. If he had an injection then the doctors would have known what had caused the fc.
Still would rather be in the position of knowing there is the chance of being a fc than my ds getting one out of the blue from a peeventable illness. My ds has had 20 odd fc and my dd 4. Ds has had 3 in one day and the last time was a prolonged one .

I don't feel that strongly, you do what's best for you and your family. Some people get hassled by the health workers about how they choose to feed their child. Since when was the UK a paternalistic society that imposed such things? If so, why stop there, put contraception in cheap alcohol and fags, folic acid in the water (although it is in cheapo bread already) and maybe omega 3 in turkey twizzlers.
I am not saying people shouldn't vaccinate, just not comfortable with the "they should be forced" notion.
What I don't get OP is, either you wanted to be murdered or you wanted a fight or were looking for a laugh. Why in the name of God would you post this on MN? Even non controversial posters get murdered, this was bound to end with everyone saying you are unreasonable and large amount of wiki copying and pasting.

If you want YOUR child to be safe, get them vaccinated.
DO NOT rely on the others to protect you
DO NOT rely on treatment
DO NOT assume that febrile convulsions (which I'd never heard of till I joined MN three years ago, despite kids of 14 and 12) are worse than disease
DO NOT assume it will not happen to you

OR
as DH says
Tie up your camel, THEN trust in Allah (we're atheist by the way)

febrile convulsions are very scary though and I think if you have never experienced your child having one its hard to comment.
We had to call an ambulance for our son, he was only two and fitting for what seemed like an age. He had bitten hard down on his tongue and we were convinced it was going to be badly damaged. He still had all his jabs but boy did I cry and stress out after each one and with my daughter I made my gp stagger the injections so she was having less in one go.
I am due my third any time now and I will be getting my baby immunized, I am however going to have the jabs spaced out again. I don't want to ever have to experience a febrile convulsion again or need my baby to be admitted into hospital with a temperature that won't come down, its very very scary.

thebeesnees79
There is a brilliant quote from Dr Christopher Green'sToddler Taming

The odd fever fit is unlikely to do the child any harm, only it's mother's nerves

Got me through many a fc

I am lucky that I only ever experienced one otherwise my nerves would be shot. Saying that I do get twitchy if either child has a high temp and I set my alarm in the middle of the night to check them. That's what kept going through my head the first time, what if I was asleep and he choked on his sick etc.

Freudianslipper I wasn't providing research links for reading; I was giving two researcher contact details, so you can ask the questions directly from people who have devoted years of their lives to working in that specific area. I spoke to researchers when I was worried about another medical issue in the family, and they were beyond helpful. I was put in touch with them by a friend who is also a researcher, albeit in another field, but in all honesty I am certain the people I spoke to would have happily talked to any parent with concerns. They are committed to their research area, enjoy talking about it, and liked to know their work was of value.

I also think that there is a danger in conflating internal or commissioned research done for pharmaceutical companies, with individual researchers being corrupt. Major drug companies have an overwhelmingly financial incentive, no doubt about that, but there is a risk in assuming all scientists are willing to be bought and sold. They aren't. Most researchers attached to universities and teaching hospitals genuinely just want to test hypotheses. They are fiercely academic, which is how they ended up in the field anyway - only the best, when I was at college, had any chance of becoming a medical researcher, because the competition for graduate study funding and then academic posts is so intense. If you talk to an individual or two about their findings, the available data in the area, and their own views, I think you should be pretty safe in getting a good, honest answer and not a press release. It might be really reassuring for you. It might not. But at least you'd be talking to someone with real knowledge. That's the best it gets, I think - you have to trust someone, after all.

Whilst I am generally pro-vaccine (although my mother was told not to vaccinate me due to a chromosome disorder by my Pediatric Immunologist in the US) I do think they should respect your choice or take the choice away (move to a system like that in the US where you need a vaccine certificate or letter from PI to get a school place). I don't see the point of having a choice if they hassle you for making the 'wrong' one.

Having said that I do think your reason for not vaccinating are a little fluffy. Given your daughter's medical history maybe you could look into having the jabs in hospital? I know FC are horrible. There is a girl in my class at work (special school) who has had 50 in 12 years. They are 'complex' FC and very different to the simple ones (differentiated by rate of occurrence, length or focus on one body part)

I wish I had this info a few years back and parents fears were not so easily dismissed. Ds has had his jabs now. Could have been reassuring. I would never dismiss all research at all but having studied just a little of the research of anti depressants I have realised you have to research your research source

And the reason he was worrying doctors is that they were struggling to keep his temperature down, they were convinced he had an underlying infection and took blood and urine tests. The wait for the meningitis test seemed like an eternity . They themselves did not think it was just a case of a fs that is quite common after having an injection, thankfully tests came back fine

Don't be bullied! I took the decision about jabs - I wasn't going to be the one responsible for any side-effects, and the NHS staff certainly wouldn't have been! People are very nasty with their own beliefs, shoving them down your throat with venom - stick to yours. All the best!

yabvvvvvu

LOLOLOL at some of the bollocks on both sides in this thread.

Here's some more anecdata. I was unvaccinated and home-educated as a child. (I am now vaccinated, as an altruistic gesture towards society.). I was the unhealthiest child ever, and I'm not much better as an adult. I am the original weakling.

Thank godlets for herd immunity. Otherwise I'd be dead.

Some people talk about immunising jabs as if they are an entirely personal choice - something that only affects THEIR child, no one else's.

They couldn't be more wrong.

There are children (and adults) who cannot have vaccines, and who are immune compromised (leukaemia, HIV, chemo etc) - or who are simply more vulnerable to infection and have underlying health problems which make a bout of illness much more serious (Down children with heart problems, cystic fibrosis sufferers).

You may not worry about YOUR child catching mumps or measles.

But if a vulnerable child caught something from your unvaccinated child, and died - how would you live with yourself?

It's not even comparable to Jehovah's Witnesses refusing blood transfusions for their children. At least that only affects THEIR child. Vaccinations are about all of our children.

I know parents who had a baby around the same time as us (a bit hippy and anti authority) who started looking at anti-vac sites on the internet, and then said they didn't want the jab because it had 'toxins' in it. They were supported in their thinking by an army of badly informed friends, who think doctors are an instrument of 'da man'. One of them actually said at one point 'I never had the MMR jab when I was small and look at me, I'm fine!'

When you are dealing with people this stupid, all you can do is point out how they are putting OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN AND BABIES AT RISK. Vaccination is NOT just a personal decision.

If vaccination rates continue to drop, vulnerable children will die. Simple.

I had whooping cough as a child and vividly remember it. I also have a brother who is a victim of polio (widespread in the first part of the last century). We have managed to eradicate these devastating diseases through vaccination programs. The decision not to vaccinate is selfish.

selfish or not, the results of your child catching the disease are likely to be much worse than the results of having the vaccination.

"the results of your child catching the disease are likely to be much worse than the results of having the vaccination"

just being devil's advocate... is the measles strain more powerful than it used to be? I had measles and I don't have any lasting damage (not had mumps etc though) so is it really true that the reslts of catching something like measles are likely to be much worse than having the vaccine, I mean in the long run?

Dueling I have had Dengue Fever. Google it for a scare! I was fine and lived through it. However, it is a leading cause of death in children in the majority world. Statistically, dengue is not very serious but some people die of it. I could say, dengue is not serious. I had it and am fine. Measles is the same. Most people get it and are fine. Some people die from it, some lose their hearing etc. You don't know who until it happens. Less chance of death or disability from the vaccine.

Duelling - the risk is it will develop into measles encephalitis. Google that - and also Roald Dahl measles for his heartbreaking account of his own daughter's death from it.

Dueling I've been looking around trying to estimate death and complication rates for measles in the UK, and it's difficult. There hasn't been a measles death in the UK since 1992 (apart from cases that followed from infection many years ago or which are associated with immune deficiency). Historically before the vaccination programme began in the UK the death rate was about 1 in 5000 cases.

The US Center for Disease Control (so a comparable population and standard of healthcare) gives a similar death rate for the period 1985-1992, and estimates complications at 30%, some of which are things like diarrhoea, but includes pneumonia (6%) and acute encephalitis (0.1%, with a mortality rate of 15% and brain damage in 25% of cases). This covered a period when there was a resurgence in cases due to low vaccine take-up. If you extrapolate that to the UK cases over the same period (367,093), you'd have about 22,000 cases of pneumonia (the leading cause of death for children with measles) and 367 cases of acute encephalitis (more common in adults).

Now if anyone can show me that the vaccine causes similar rates of serious illness, injury or death (and remember we're still not including mumps or rubella cases) I will eat my keyboard. It goes back to what I said further up the thread about people generally being unable to judge relative risk.

After the US started enforcing vaccination for pre-school children, case incidence has dropped dramatically from a peak of about 22,000 in 1990. Since 1997 there have been fewer than 300 cases a year and about 1 death a year. Most of these cases have been acquired outside the US.

The UK had 964 laboratory confirmed cases of measles in the first half of this year. If the cases continue to rise we will see deaths in previously healthy children and adults.

OP you are being very unreasonable. Have my first ever

i also caught whooping cough as a toddler and my mum is now a bit :( that i wasn't vaccinated due to the scare at the time.

op it must have been scary to see your wee one having convulsions, but YABU to just refuse all further jabs.

OP, can you have your DD vaccinated when she is a bit older? We used to live in Belgium and they didn't do the second vaccine until 11.

FWIW, I had measles as a child and it affected my eyes seriously. I had to have an operation on them when I was two, and my vision has never been good - a direct result of having had measles.

Duelingfanjo, read this - www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15999492

There have been deaths, in France, and a LOT of patients ill enough to be hospitalised.

Again - you need to think about vulnerable children and adults. Children with CF, Down Syndrome, any immune system problems whether from illness (cancer) or treatment, or even children with athsma are all much more likely to suffer badly if they get measles or whooping cough, or ANY preventable illness for which vaccines are routinely given.

Again - you may be able to live with yourself or your own child getting measles/whooping cough - would you be happy if you or your child infected another vulnerable child, and they died or were left with serious health problems?

Public immunisation programmes exist for a reason.