To think Andrew Wakefield has blood on his hands for causing so much distrust over the MMR?

[chicaguapa]

That's it really. He's caused so much damage with his stupid little study. It was years ago, he was struck off, the study was discredited, but people still don't get the MMR because of it.

In 2011 there were 4 cases of lab confirmed rubella in the UK. Last year it was 65 cases. We have been vaccinating against rubella for about 40years. Waning immunity would be showing up by now.

www.sparks-of-light.org/polio-cause.html
It's certainly not black and white and there are many theories as to what caused polio to decline the way it did.

Jeeze blackcats all I was trying to say was that i believe extended breastfeeding helps to mitigate the 'danger' from these common childhood diseases.... you know strengthening the immune system...the thing that helps protect us from getting every 'germ' going....hardly rocket science. But from where you are so massively defensive I'm guessing you couldn't be arsed to do that....

I'll spell it out again. I think certain vaccines carry a risk I'm not prepared to take. Measles also carries a risk, so I therefore did all I could to try and make that risk as small as possible.

As for autoimmune diseases, the right diet can work wonders with many of them...but hey

Babyhammock, fret not. My dcs have all been breastfed. Course they've also had all the recommended vaccines as well. Nice attack on other parents though. I don't think it's blackcat who's defensive..........

Both my boys were breast fed until they were two as who advised. They were also vaccinated....as who advised.

No Northern, you've done nothing but attack other choices that don't correlate with your own. I'm glad you've vaccinated it that's what you think is the right thing for your child. No where have I said parents who vaccinate are wrong or stupid or made spiteful comments about hoping they wouldn't be vaccine damaged etc.

I was simply trying to explain the reason for my choices... you do what you feel is best and I will do the same.

If anyone is interested in finding out how the UK polio vaccine was developed, this site is a good place to start.

I've attacked choices which are based on no reason at all. I have no issue at all with parents not vaccinating because of medical advice. I have every issue with parents who decide not to vaccinate for illogical, selfish and nonsensical reasons.

Vaccination does not necessarily = immunity; in fact vaccinated children can pass on the virus... vaccine shedding anyone?

A parent choosing not to take the risk of injecting something into their own baby is a good enough reason to make the choice not to vaccinate Northern.

I can see how you may come to the conclusion that to not vaccinate is illogical, but to call it selfish and nonsensical is just horrible, and not true.

Clouds - on this thread one woman has said she doesn't give a damn about the effect of spreading rubella on other women's babies and another has asserted that her child doen't need vaccinations because she's expressed breast milk for the last 4 years. I think 'selfish and nonsensical' is a fair summary of some of the views here.

If a woman has had the MMR herself, does that mean her unborn baby can't be effected by people with rubella?

Affected*

hello. i have a vaccine damaged child. im very happy for everybody on this thread who vaccinated without incident but the ignorant complacancy of so many on this thread is terrifying.

You can't have mmr when you're pregnant.

Oh sorry, if she's had mmr before getting pregnant she should be immune to German measles so her unborn baby would be fine.

Ah, that's what I thought.

Doesn't that make it the woman's responsibility to be vaccinated with the MMR to protect any of her potential future children rather than relying on everybody else's children and herd immunity? A lot of people seem to be angry about people who don't vaccinate relying on other people so why is an adult woman excluded from that anger? She could have vaccinated herself as soon as she became sexually active just in case.

Most women are immune but some who were vaccinated at routine age only find out when they're pregnant that they're not immune. Immunity isn't tested apart from in pregnancy.

ASnd then when they find out htey at that point they can't be vaccinated.

Immunity to rubella can be tested before ttc. This is one immunity check the NHS are happy to do. You go to your GP say 'I'm thinking of trying to get pregnant please can my immunity to rubella be checked' and they say yes. I did exactly that 15 years ago.

If ds2 or ds3 get serious with a woman (ad opposed to a man) at some stage the one bit of MIL advice I'll give is 'if you decide you want to try for a baby at some time, get your rubella immunity checked - especially if your last encounter with rubella was when you were a pre-schooler via a vaccine'. Yes I know life isn't always that simple but it is possible to take some responsibility towards future unborn children.

I did once have to tell a friend in first trimester pregnancy that someone they had gone out for a meal with had come down with rubella a day later. I was shaking telling her. She said 'it's fine I had my immunity checked before getting pregnant' & skipped off (which was my lesson to get mine checked a few years later)

"on this thread one woman has said she doesn't give a damn about the effect of spreading rubella on other women's babies"

Who said that?

What I said was that I will not give DC unnecessary vaccines. If the state wants to protect "other women's babies", they should test teenage girls for rubella immunity and offer the vaccine to them at that point if they are not immune. These "other women" should also take responsibility for their own babies and get their immunity tested before they get pregnant.

Anyways, "other women" have all had their own MMRs, so theoretically should be protected by this wonderful vaccine you love so dearly and whose immunity apparently never wanes, so you don't need my little babies to be unnecessarily vaccinated.

FYI, my DS had rubella when he was 4 months old. He didn't go to nursery and was with me 24/7. I don't know where he got it from, I pretty sure he didn't give it to anyone. I only realised he had rubella in hindsight because when the rash appeared I remembered the redness behind his ears a few days beforehand.

Thats good .jimjams however i think your in a small minority, most women dont get checked before ttc.

Could do with an information ddrive on the benefit of this, especially in swansea at the minute.

Then of course there are all the women who werent actively ttc.

Yes Viva, like I said life isn't always so simple. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking responsibility for your future unborn child yourself rather than relying passively on a) people around you to vaccinate b) people around you to educate themselves that even if they'd had a rubella vaccination they can still get rubella and c) vaccine surveillance (immunity is better with circulating disease - so rubella isn't necessarily always going to provide good protection).

And I doubt there'll ever be a drive for this as it would cost more money than it would save. Doesn't prevent people educating and actinh themselves though.

Not that it did me much good as the baby I was trying to protect is severely disabled anyway. But at least it gave me a worry free pregnancy and first year or so until regression. Ah those were halycon days (they were actually - a very special time & I'm grateful we had that time before the shit hit the fan big time)

"I'm not saying all medicine is bad, in acute illnesses its is invaluable, in chronic conditions not so much"

BabyHammock - can you please suggest an appropriate diet of fruit, veg and seeds to treat my auto-immune thyroid disease?

I'd also be interested in hearing which other chronic conditions you have researched that don't require drug treatments and your evidence to support this.

I know this is like saying to a child "eat up your dinner there are poor children who would be glad of it", and. I know it's not really relevant to this discussion, but when I hear about women in the developing world desperate to protect their children from the diseases that kill them every day,it makes me feel a little ashamed that we have the luxury of this sort of discussion.

As you were.

Not sure that's true actually seeker. A friend who worked in Botswana said she found the people were very suspicious of modern medicine & she had to do some work quite hard to persuade HIV positive patients to take retrovirals for example (Botswana is one country where the govt supplies them free of charge so there were no money issues, they just didn't trust the drugs).

Also if you have a browse you find that when children are vaccine damaged parents are equally pissed off wherever they are. I found a report from remote region of asia where a hot batch had caused some problems and a parent was quote as saying 'what are they giving our children in these shots'. In India there's often quite an active discussion about vaccinations in the newspapers with a wider range of views expressed compared to here from what I've seen. The Times of India is always a good source.