To choose to vaccinate 1yr old against chicken pox?

[welliwasntexpectingthat]

I have 2 older children who have had it and i feel like it will hang over us, ready to pounce just before a holiday or another inconvenient time. I can't see there is any real detrimental effect of doing it on him....or am i missing something important?

Just feels like it's impossible to find an impartial and accurate source of what the pros and cons are, both now and for in the future.

Try these:

www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/shingles.html

www.livescience.com/45804-chickenpox-vaccine-cause-shingles.html

Decades of routine chickenpox vaccination in the US has not caused a significant increase in shingles and the NHS certainly knows this. As PP said, it's about the cost.

@Teddybear45 kids can get nasty scarring from chickenpox. one of my cousins is disfigured from it (think horrendous facial scarring).
People need to get a booster /2 doses if the vaccine. one is not enough. in the earlier days of the vaccine, only one dose was provided (its 2 now)

Question for anyone who has had the vaccine

Do they test your kids for immunity first? I have booked the vaccine for my DC aged 3&4. A few weeks ago the 3yr old was in contact with someone who came down with chickenpox the next day, then two weeks later had high temp/sickness/ tired and lethargic and 4 spots that were 100% fluid filled chicken pox blisters. Then the next day, the spots had faded to pin pricks and the day after that completely disappeared. And none of my other kids ever came down with anything.

So I don't know if it was coincidental virus, or if he did get Cpox. I don't want to unnecessarily waste £150 if he had already had pox and doesn't need the vaccine - will they check him for immunity first?

We're going too. If she can get the immunity without having to have the illness then that's a plus in my book. Myself and my brother were very ill with it when we were litttle and my mum is a transplant patient so it just makes the most sense.

My daughter hasn't had it yet and she's 4 going into full time in sept. I'm wondering whether to vaccinate her ? It's clearly a miserable illness and I don't want her having it when she's older too. X

I am a nursing student (in Aus) and we have to have our immunity tested prior to doing our clinical placements. If they are not high enough, we need to be vaccinated. I had CPox when I was little. I only had about three pox, scratched them all and they left scars. I developed shingles for the first time when I was nine. I am very lucky that it didn’t go into my eye. I have had it a few times since and it’s bloody awful!!! I hate to think how much fun I’m going to have as an old lady with shingles under my eyebrow every time my immune system crashes! If you can prevent that, do it!!!

it's also funny how the usual MN consensus has been turned on its head on this thread - usually it's those who don't vaccinate their children who get anger and snide comments - not those who do

I pointed this out on another thread. If you don't vaccinate you're an idiot for not following medical information. But that doesn't apply if you don't vaccinate against CP because you are following medical information. Hmmmm.

What I don't quite get is that rubella is mild in most cases but obviously can have terrible effects if you catch it while pregnant. But that's effectively the case for chicken pox too (and for slapped cheek which I hadn't even heard of until ds, and then I, got it when he was about 3). Yet one is vaccinated against and the other two are not. So the shingles thing does seem to stack up to me.

I hate to think how much fun I’m going to have as an old lady with shingles under my eyebrow every time my immune system crashes! If you can prevent that, do it

you can get the shingles vaccine. It does work even if you've had the illness multiple times. My mum must have had shingles five or six times but she finally became old enough to qualify for the vaccination, and since then, nothing.

Never expected so much response! I asked because despite researching i couldn't ascertain if there was a social negative ie i'll protect my child, sod the population.

Anyway, i have booked it 😬.

I didn't know there was a shingles vaccine until this thread. Definitely going to look into that once I'm old enough to qualify.

I was going to as my older two had it years ago get our third baby done.

He just turned 11 month and came down with them yesterday. He's so poorly with them as he has bad eczema anyway. I really hoped he wouldn't ever catch them.

Sorry, I realise this is too late now, sinkgirl - bit for anyone whose child has reasons for there to be complications from contracting chicken pox, the vaccine is available on the NHS. Ds had it done as recommended by his paediatrician.

Thanks hazey - I asked his paediatrician and she said he wouldn’t qualify because he’s not immune compromised. Frustrating really. If he’s as bad as his brother with it, there’s a hospital stay in our imminent future.

The whole “complications are rare” thing annoys me. My son was born with a condition that affects close to 1 in 100,000 babies. He also has a visual impairment that’s uncommon, a specific type of brain damage, and autism. So far it seems that all these things are unconnected. The chances of getting all of these must be super rare, yet he has them.

This study looked at rates of serious complications of chicken pox over a 13 month period in the U.K.

There were 112 cases that were counted by the study including six deaths. Half the cases were bacterial septicaemia.

That’s 112 peoples children, median age of 3, most of them completely healthy before contracting chicken pox.

I really wish I’d done it.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2066097/#!po=1.02041

fairweathercyclist I suppose if there's a consensus, it's that we should all be sheeple when it comes to medical treatment. We should never question medical advice, or wonder if advice is motivated by costs, even where we are wildly out of step with comparable economies.

Such a shame sinkgirl. Ds's paed recommended them because he is susceptible to chest problems. I guess it is very dependant on the health care professional you get.

I have 2 friend's whose children had serious complications as a result of chicken pox, in both instances they were dismissed as being over anxious parents when they had concerns. The attitude to it is very annoying.

It is absolutely about cost to the NHS.

Yes, and about Wakefield. With MMR rates so low because of disinformation by antivaxxers, they are incredibly worried about anything that would drive that lower, including adding another vaccine to the mix and increasing the opportunities for people to spread misinformation and increasing uncertainty (as has happened on this thread and on every thread I’ve seen about CP vaccine.)

As the most cost effective way to vaccinate is my replacing MMR with MMRV, there would be a risk of measles herd immunity totally breaking down - as mumps herd immunity has already done in some places.

This isn’t a secret, it’s in the JCVI minutes.

DS2 had terrible asthma when he was young so we chose to vaccinate him against CP and have his MMR vaccines done separately.

DS1 had CP when he was a little over a year old and was hospitalised through it. I wouldn't have risked that again for all the tea in China.

Mine were so so ill with chicken pox (one query sepsis ambulance job). Somehow it passed me by that you could privately vaccinate. I absolutely would in a flash if I had my time again.

All 4 of my children have been vaccinated against chicken pox as it’s readily available where I live (not in the UK). We pay for all vaccines but this is technically not on the government vaccination schedule but rather considered private...

My nephew was hospitalized for chicken pox for almost a week - he really was very ill. Thankfully he recovered but it was very distressing for all.

It is still possible to catch CP when vaccinated but much much more mildly.

The NHS's reasons for not vaccinating against this are interesting, I must say...

In fact, I'd say the MMR has the same problems in this case: all three diseases are usually mild in children, but much worse in adults, and immunity for measles in pregnant women, for example, is going down as a result of the vaccine (no regular exposure = no regular booster).
The only valid thing here would be shingles, but then again there's a vaccine for it.

For the record, my children are vaccinated.

The vaccine is very ineffective which is why in countries such as India and the USA there is an increase in CP and shingles in adults.

Bollocks.

www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/varicella/hcp/about-vaccine.html

Vaccine Effectiveness

One dose

1 dose of single-antigen varicella vaccine is—
    85% effective at preventing any form of varicella
    almost 100% effective against severe varicella

Two doses

In a pre-licensure clinical trial, 2 doses of vaccine were—
    98% effective at preventing any form of varicella
    100% effective against severe varicella
In post-licensure studies, 2 doses of vaccine were—
    88% to 98% effective at preventing all varicella

@BogglesGoggles @myself2020

Just to clarify my post - I do agree with you completely. I have paid for the vaccine privately for my DC. I was simply trying to state what I thought the NHS's reasons were. Of course it makes sense to protect your own DC over the adult population, why wouldn't anyone (if they can afford it)

@coffeeforone oh fair enough. I misunderstood-apologies!

My kids are vaccinated, I always find it weird how parents at the school gates say they can’t afford it and will prioritise buying their children iPads over a vaccine. This is not a poor area either. It’s almost as if they find it a rite of passage of childhood to go through chickenpox. “Oh it never did me any harm” When an outbreak was reported at school I told them where they could have it done locally when they began fretting so they could prevent their child having it. Only the mother from Australia took her child. Lo and behold most children were off for up to 2 weeks with CP and missed school, the parents were on Facebook showing off their poorly kids in a chickenpox one-upmanship contest.

Does anyone know whether the live vaccine can pass chicken pox to a younger sibling? I want to get toddler DS done but we also have a newborn so don’t want to risk her being exposed to it from his vaccine.

Does anyone know whether the live vaccine can pass chicken pox to a younger sibling?

It's an attenuated virus vaccine and having an unvaccinated child at home isn't listed in the contraindicated groups:

www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/varicella/public/index.html

so my guess would be no, but ring your pediatrician first to check.