Unvaccinated children around newborn

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I don't want to clog the other post here but I wondered what peoples thoughts are.

I'm currently pregnant. My closest friend chooses not to vaccinate her children aged 2 and 6 and has done this since pregnancy, both children attend nursery. Although I wouldn't make the same decision I don't want to debate her reasoning or the pros and cons of vaccination, there has been plenty of that on the other thread.

I have tried to research the possible risks but feel I'm stumbling in the dark on google. AIBU to not allow her / her children to have contact with my DS until he is able to receive his immunisations or am I being PFB?

I don't think it's PFB to want to protect your new born from disease. I probably went completely over the top (have worked in infection research) and was hyper aware of infection risks, to the extent we avoided crowded public places until after first jabs, and right through babyhood used to turn the pram away if anyone in eg the supermarket looked peaky so they wouldn't breathe on them! No-one was allowed to touch without washing hands, and if anyone was ill they were asked to stay away.

However, I would agree with others who say that adults are as much of a risk as unvaccinated children - whooping cough transmission for instance is primarily from adults with waning immunity, who often don't realise they have WC, to children. There are also things like Hib and PCV and Meningitis that adults weren't vaccinated against.

I would also say that even vaccinated children (assuming the vaccines 'took' which they don't in up to 1 in 20 cases) can carry all kinds of other illnesses that can be a threat to a newborn, such as chicken pox, hand foot and mouth, scarlet fever etc. If you had Measles, chicken pox etc yourself your baby will probably be protected by maternal antibodies for a few months at least. If not, they will be more susceptible.

I avoided unvaccinated children (well as much as I could/knew their vac status) when I was pg with dd2 - my rubella immunisation "wore off" and I didn't find out until I was already PG. there were rubella outbreaks at the time in our borough. It was a nerve wracking time.

Really drove home to me how fucking stupid and selfish people who don't immunise their kids "because everyone else does so we don't need to" are.

How parents with sick/vulnerable children who can't immunise them get by without being in a constant rage against these ignorant people amazes me.

Do what you want/need to do op. Don't feel bad for a second.

Adults do nor present the same risk as children for the same reason children get nits more than adults. Children are in closer company with each other.

Lovely, you could have checked your rubella status before becoming pregnant and had a vaccine yourself!

Side- What about the women who have unplanned pregnancies and then find out that they are not immune to Rubella?

Is their right to be protected from rubella greater than the right of a child? The rubella vaccine is given to stop a child passing rubella onto a pregnant woman. rubella is not dangerous to the child, only the pregnant woman. So, a parent has to consent to their child having a medical procedure which is to the benefit of someone else. Worst of all, some children will suffer catastrophic side effects from this vaccine, from which they will never recover. The rubella vaccine has huge moral implications that run much deeper than just having an injection and you are protected.

So you're a non-vaxxer then SideOfFoot?

What are the moral implications?

For some, yes, Felicia.

The moral implications are far greater than can be covered on here. Briefly, is it moral that my child has a medical procedure to protect someone else. Conversely, is it moral that my child doesn't have a medical procedure to protect someone else. Bare in mind, that the medical procedure is not without risk.

The sheer selfishness of that argument depresses me so much.

mynameisnotmichaelcaine - did you give your children the CP vaccine?

YANBU and she will need to respect that. It is sensible to reduce reasonably high risk, where possible. Of course you can't eliminate all risk, but you can take sensible precautions and this is one of them.

Out of interest I just looked up to see if there were measles in the community as there has been a small outbreak in northern france. There does seem to be a small outbreak at present mostly in London and the SE independent article amongst un-vaccinated people.

SideOfFoot I DID have the rubella vaccine. As I said in my post it wore off - I was unaware this could even happen, let alone that it actually had happened. I was fine with my first PG - but by my 2nd, no more rubella immunity (apparently because I was an older Mum this can be an issue - I had DD2 at 43). As soon as I had DD2 I was re-vaccinated.

It could happen to you too if you were unvaccinated, or you were an older Mum and your protection wore off. It could happen to your DD or your DS's partner, when they have children - your grandchildren.

And it's not so much the PG women that is endangered by rubella, but her unborn child! Congenital defects. Fantastic. This person not only may not know that they had no immunity themselves (at the most dangerous part of the PG re rubella exposure), they may not know that they had been exposed to rubella until it is way too late.

You are relying on your children, (and in the case of rubella your and their unborn babies), being protected by the herd, all the while you are weakening the herd, and increasing the risk to high risk sick children who for medical reasons can't be vaccinated.

But you are fine with that, so yeah, good on you.

pmsl at the idea of checking one's own immune status before falling pg.
45% of humanity results from unplanned pregnancies.
Including me & almost all of my close relations (& DH's).
Maybe that logic presumes we're all people who shouldn't exist; else should accept that real life is very messy.

My kids are fully vaxxed, btw. I would be very upset if someone else's child fell very ill having caught something off of my kids. I also am not a control freak about what happens in rest of life. I understand that OP feels she has to make an active decision either way. I hope everything goes well whatever you decide. x

SideOfFoot you need to know you are very ignorant on the subject of the risks of rubella.

"Is their right to be protected from rubella greater than the right of a child? The rubella vaccine is given to stop a child passing rubella onto a pregnant woman. rubella is not dangerous to the child, only the pregnant woman."

Here are some facts for you:
www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1104.aspx?CategoryID=54

The question you need to ask yourself is "is my child more important than the next child"? Well it's not even that is it? It is "is my determination to remain ignorant more important than protecting other peoples unborn children?".

to quote the NHS:

Rubella, or German measles, is most dangerous to your baby if you catch it during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. Rubella can cause miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects in unborn babies, such as:
hearing loss
brain damage
heart defects
cataracts
This is called congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) and is transmitted to the baby through the placenta.
If a pregnant woman does become infected with rubella during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, there is no treatment that is known to be effective in preventing CRS.
However, rubella is now a rare condition, because people were either vaccinated at school or as part of the childhood MMR vaccine.

But good on you Side for your determined efforts to chip away at that progress.

www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2016-03-15/first-of-two-public-evidence-sessions-on-the-meningitis-b-vaccine-start-in-parliament/

People selflessly fighting for others

pmsl at the idea of checking one's own immune status before falling pg.
I know!! :)

16.2% pregnancies in the UK are unplanned

Re it being selfish to not vaccinate your child to protect others. The majority of people in the UK do not vaccinate against CP - also a potential risk to pregnant women and immunocompromised people.
The majority of children don't have the flu vaccine (given mainly to protect the elderly but many of them don't take the vaccine themselves . Neither do the majority of pregnant women. Only ~55% of health care workers have the flu vaccine So lots of selfish people in the UK I guess.

A bit more info about risks of rubella in pregnancy:

Infection in weeks 8-10 of pregnancy results in damage in up to 90% of surviving infants. Multiple defects are then common.
The risk of damage reduces to 10-20% if the infection is in weeks 11-16 of pregnancy.
Fetal damage is rare over 16 weeks of gestation.

anti-vaxxer life lesson; NOTHING, repeat NOTHING is without risk. Suck it up.

you have to learn to assess risk and choose the less risky option. This involves listening at school, and if you didn't do that, then go learn some basic science from books or reliable websites.

you've got the same terminal illness as the rest of us, it's called life.

I would keep my baby away from them given that you know they are unvaccinated but then again I do agree to some extent with those saying what about unvaccinated adults? I only discovered recently that my parents didn't vaccinate me against various things (whooping cough for a start which I then contracted as an adult) since at the time (presumably early to mid seventies) there was a big scare about various vaccines.

I think the difference between unvaccinated adults and unvaccinated children, is that adults twnd to have slightly higher hygiene standards and are less likely to smear snot everywhere/ do massive uncovered sneezes etc.

www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/28c10e2c-f1dd-46bc-a7ce-b7e0fc024246

This is the first evidence session regarding the MenB petition
Hard facts

redhat now that you know you are unvaccinated for certain diseases have you went off to the GP and had the vaccinations?