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Original poster

To let my baby catch chicken pox?

207 replies

Rumplestrumpet · 18/12/2015 19:48

In brief, my husband, baby and me are due to go away for 3 days with another family next week. They're a lovely couple though, tbh, our husbands have nothing in common, so it's really just us wives pushing it. She told me yesterday that her son has come down with chicken pox. Our baby is almost 6 months old and has never had it, though DH and I have.

I spoke to my HV today and she was very relaxed about it - they have to get it at some point, at least now you're on mat leave so won't have to take time off to look after her. She is exclusively breast fed so you can comfort her with the breast - it's your call.

DH would happily ditch the whole thing, but I feel like I still want to go... But then I will feel terribly if baby catches it and is in a lot of pain....

Anyone had a small baby with chicken pox? Is it really awful? ie worse than when they're older?

Welcome advice please!

OP posts:
captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:10

When you get your child vaccinated you are strongly advised to purchase a booster vaccine I think within a year of the first. Perhaps your study you quote is even the reason why it is now normal.

But no one knows how long booster immunity lasts because the vaccine is only 20 years old. So how can anyone say the booster won't last a lifetime? It may or may not?

Do you know if your child will get lifetime immunity if they naturally catch CP? No you don't.

The study does say that if you catch CP after vaccination it is very likely to be mild. So even if your child doesn't get immunity perhaps you are protecting them from hospitalisation and nasty complications.

Scaredycat3000 · 19/12/2015 18:12

FFS so much incorrect information. I think the most ironic has to be courtesy of Cote

If you don't know the difference between the common cold and a one-time disease such as chicken pox, you really shouldn't be embarrassing yourself by posting about them.

Common cold: Get it many times. No lifetime immunity.

Chicken pox: Get it once. Lifetime immunity.

Utter, utter lie. As stated many times on here many children do catch it twice. The origin of the out break that my boys caught CP from was the first and the last case, about six months in between. Poor thing.

I suggest reading something like the NHS website.

My CP story is that DS1 got an infected eye from, I'm guessing, rubbing his CP spots into his eye as he slept. I swelled up so fast 2/3 hours it nearly closed his eye. I'll never know when the infection started, as he went to sleep or early morning, just scary. Also that DS2 caught it off a toy (handed to him) of a sleeping baby the day before her CP spots came out, he hardly touched the toy as well, DS1 only caught CP the last day DS2 was infectious.

coconutpie · 19/12/2015 18:14

Why would you deliberately expose your DC to a disease just to go on a stupid holiday? No holiday is worth infecting your DC with such a potentially horrific illness is just irresponsible and selfish. Chicken pox can be mild or very severe. I vaccinated my DC against it.

bumbleymummy · 19/12/2015 18:15

In the US I think the first vaccine is given at 12-18 months and the second at 4-6 years. The booster dose was only introduced in 2006.

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:15

Oh and being the type of person I am, I.e. A rather sickly one who gets nasty illnesses a lot, my intention is to get my children blood tests as teenagers to see which diseases they still have immunity to and the ones they don't. Then I can look at boosters for any of them.

I am sure most people will think I am mad as a box of frogs but I don't care.

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:16

"Do you know if your child will get lifetime immunity if they naturally catch CP? No you don't."

Um yes, I do. With significantly higher certainty than that with which you would "know" your child has even temporary immunity from the vaccine.

Stellar67 · 19/12/2015 18:18

My eldest got CP from nursery at 3, had mild symptoms.
I then caught it from DC1, and I was seriously ill. My 3 month old then got it, and had a mild case too.

You never know. I'm not a fan of exposing anyone to illness but it's a lottery as to how an illness will affect you.

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:18

Bumbley I don't know why the booster is given within a year at the clinic here. Is it done in the US as a combined MMRV? Here it's just a single dose vaccine.

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:19

How do you know that CoteDAzur?

Scaredycat3000 · 19/12/2015 18:22

Cote You are wrong, incorrect, misinformed. Do you understand those words?
Many people have stated on here their child has had CP more than once, the NHS website says you can get it more than once. What do you know that us mere mortals don't?

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:26

"many children do catch it twice."

Very very rarely, and usually for a reason like immune system deficiency or 1st time happening under the age of 1 when immune system isn't mature.

expatinscotland · 19/12/2015 18:26

Read the whole thread. The same people, the same responses.

The bottom line is this: some people get really ill with CP, some even die, others aren't so ill at all.

Is this a gamble you are willing to deliberately take with your child?

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:32

ok CoteDAzur how many children under age 1catch CP from older siblings then? Only a very very small amount???

So if my preschooler goes to nursery between March and May and it goes around like wild fire then I know my baby due in Feb is hardly likely to catch it from their siblings, because they have been immunised.

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:32

"Many people have stated on here their child has had CP more than once, the NHS website says you can get it more than once. What do you know that us mere mortals don't?"

I don't know who these "many people" are but it is quite common knowledge that childhood diseases such as chicken pox and measles are typically suffered only once, because they normally confer lifetime immunity.

I am using the words typically and normally because there are very few cases where a second symptomatic infection is seen. That is definitely not common, though.

It is so very rare, in fact, that you will see information leaflets such as this one by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust say "Once you have had chickenpox you cannot catch it a second time."

I can find links from other sources if you really need some.

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:34

"CoteDAzur how many children under age 1catch CP from older siblings then? Only a very very small amount"

I don't know and can't say why you think I should.

DS had chicken pox as a baby. His older sibling caught it from him. Does that mean something to you?

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:37

But you just said that if a child is under 1 they are likely to catch it twice.... Why did you say that?

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:37

"Is this a gamble you are willing to deliberately take with your child?"

The real decision is whether or not you want to vaccinate your child for chicken pox, and then keep on top of that immunity status and re-vaccinate regularly, possibly until the end of his life.

If you are not going to vaccinate, it is better to have chicken pox as a child because it tends to be much more dangerous from adolescence onwards. (Not as a baby, because it may not confer lifetime immunity as the immune system may not have sufficiently matured at that time.)

It is about risk management.

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:40

"you just said that if a child is under 1 they are likely to catch it twice.... "

Did I? Maybe you need to read that post again.

expatinscotland · 19/12/2015 18:43

Our son had to be vaccinated, age 3, because our elder daughter was undergoing chemo.

captainproton · 19/12/2015 18:44

IT means your baby was exposed to the virus first and their sibling caught it from them.

Anyway you can't keep saying that people who have been vaccinated need to have lifelong boosters because there has not been enough time since the 2 part vaccination program began for scientific studies to back that claim up.

CoteDAzur · 19/12/2015 18:46

Yes I do remember those days, expat Flowers

That is of course exceptional, and most families don't have to make vaccine decisions in those circumstances.

namechangedtoday15 · 19/12/2015 18:46

cote I am one of the people who posted about DS getting it twice. He was not under 1 when he first had it, nor does he have a poor or deficient immune system. The family friend who is still suffer significant disability as a result of a stroke from CP had had it 6 months before, aged 3. He was a fit and healthy 3.5yr old the 2nd time he got it. He was hospitalised miles away from home for months. His doctors, and my son's GP commented on the common misconception that you can only get it once.

Yes, it's rare to get it twice. But it's not very very rare as you suggest.

KP86 · 19/12/2015 18:47

Haven't even read all the replies, and my immediate answer is don't do it. Chicken pox isn't the mild virus most people seem to think. It's usually quite bad in infants and the elderly.

No thanks.

contrary13 · 19/12/2015 18:48

Please don't expose your baby to it. It can have devastating consequences and, as PPs have said, what is standard for one isn't for another. It's a form of the Herpes virus, for crying out loud. You want to expose your baby to that?! Would you let someone with a cold-sore kiss them?! Same virus base, at the end of the day...

My DBs had chicken pox when I was a newborn baby. A few months old. Younger than your DC, admittedly, but not by much. I haven't had chicken pox since (and I've never had a cold sore, either, despite my mother - who has never had chicken pox - repeatedly having them). What I have had, repeatedly, is Shingles. Because the virus mutates. Shingles is nasty (not that chicken pox isn't much better). Both of my children have had chicken pox several times each, due to ignorant parents thinking that "oh, it's harmless... once you've had it; you can't get it again!". It's cow dung. Last time I had Shingles (which, nope, not an old person's illness, either: I was 21 the first time I knowingly had it), it was in my face. Next time, it might hit my eyes. I may lose my sight. Permanently. You want to wish that on your baby?

We need a chicken pox vaccine in the UK, we really do. From my own research, we're one of the few places that isn't a third world country not to have one. And we vaccinate against measles, mumps, whooping cough, rubella... and now Shingles. In the elderly.

So why not chicken pox?

KP86 · 19/12/2015 18:53

Contrary, I was most grateful to be coincidentally back in Australia when DS's 18mo vas were due because it includes chicken pox. Otherwise I would have paid to have it done privately here.

I've seen people with shingles and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Long lasting illness.