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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to insist my Mil has a flu jab...

108 replies

Lou573 · 02/10/2019 22:48

...if she wants to sit for hours holding my very prem baby this winter?

Just that really - bringing a 28 weeker home soon, previous experience tells me that my mil would like nothing more than to install herself on my sofa with the baby for hours at a time. Can I tell her she needs the flu jab before she does this or is that unreasonable? To be honest even if it is unreasonable I think I have the right to be a bit unreasonable after the last few months.

For balance my parents get it every year anyway.

OP posts:

Missingsandraohingreys · 03/10/2019 06:06

Not BU
But get some medical confirmation to help persuade her at what’s clearly been a very challenging time

GymNovice · 03/10/2019 06:17

YANBU. We were advised everyone likely to be in close contact with baby get the flu jab when (before) Dc was born and he was on his due date and expected to be healthy. MIL told BIL he wouldn't be allowed to see the baby unless he had a flu jab. He told her he didn't have time, so she waited for him outside of work one evening and drove him to get it done!
She wouldn't let FIL walk into the room at the hospital because he had just got back from an international business trip. So there he was, in his greatcoat and hat, with one of those masks on, standing in the doorway so he could see DS for the first time!

WispyTurnip · 03/10/2019 06:20

@Blueoasis, it is absolutely impossible for you have have had flu ‘several times’ over the last two years, far less twice a month.

Sleephead1 · 03/10/2019 06:21

I work in a surgery you can only have the flu jab if you fit the criteria so I'm unsure how people are saying they would insist everyone has it? Privately? You have to qualify for it ( we have lists of who meets criteria we aren't allowed to give to people who dont meet criteria) but the under 65 jabs come separately and aren't in ( in our area anyway ) we have also just run out of overs and waiting for the delivery. If she falls in an at risk group she will be offered one but I dont think you can force her to have it if she doesn't want it but you could certainly mention it to her. ( we get a fair amount of people saying it makes them ill I've no idea if this is true / a coincidence ect ) but some people are definitely against it. Congratulations on your baby and hope they get to come home soon

GymNovice · 03/10/2019 06:30

if you fit the criteria
But the official criteria also specify a group for people who are in contact (either privately or because of job) with people in the at risk category.

so if MiL is planning to be in contact with OP's baby then she would qualify.

user1493413286 · 03/10/2019 06:30

When I brought my prem baby home I made people wash their hands and they weren’t allowed into the house if they had as much as a sniffle. It might have seemed over the top but I was told if she got a cold she’d have to go back into hospital as she was still very vulnerable when she came home so I think the flu jab is quite a good idea.
I also told people not to “jiggle” her up and down because the doctors had told us not to, it wasn’t true and was almost definitely unreasonable but I didn’t like people doing it and I’d had so little control over what happened to my baby for her first few weeks that I felt I had the right to be a bit unreasonable.

Tojigornot · 03/10/2019 12:47

SleepHead1
All of the high street pharmacies and some supermarkets do flu vaccinations for about a tenner.

Blueoasis · 03/10/2019 13:09

@WispyTurnip

How? Flu has different strains like a cold. It's quite easy to get multiple different types of flu one after the other.

ChilledBee · 03/10/2019 17:42

I think it is unreasonable because the flu jab is so ineffective.

ChilledBee · 03/10/2019 17:45

During the swine flu epidemic, DH was moderately unwell and they were swabbing everyone with symptoms at the time. His come back positive for swine flu but he wasn't that unwell.

Now when I hear people say that if you can get out of bed,you haven't got flu, I'm sceptical. He went to the gym!

PurpleDaisies · 03/10/2019 17:48

If this were necessary, surely hospitals would be insisting on visitors being vaccinated. No visit if ill or ill recently, fine. Having to have a vaccination is a step too far.

pelirocco123 · 03/10/2019 17:48

If your mother in law had flu there is no way she would be able to get out of bed let alone hold your baby
She or anyone else is hardly going to be unaware that she has the flu , trust me

pelirocco123 · 03/10/2019 17:50

ChilledBee Thu 03-Oct-19 17:45:45
During the swine flu epidemic, DH was moderately unwell and they were swabbing everyone with symptoms at the time. His come back positive for swine flu but he wasn't that unwell.

Now when I hear people say that if you can get out of bed,you haven't got flu, I'm sceptical. He went to the gym!

I have had flu twice , I wouldnt have got up if the house was on fire

NoSauce · 03/10/2019 17:50

If your MIL has flu won’t she be at home in bed?

SmellbowSmellbow123 · 03/10/2019 17:50

What about the nurses that work in your babies ward? Do you know for 100% certainty that that all have had the jab?

SinkGirl · 03/10/2019 17:57

This isn’t forcing her to have a vaccine. This is saying your choice - have the vaccine or keep your distance from my very vulnerable baby.

YANBU unreasonable at all OP. My twins weren’t as early as yours but one had IUGR so was tiny for their gestation. He contracted whooping cough in the bloody NICU - someone brought it in clearly. I try to give the benefit of the doubt and think they were asymptomatic at the time but plenty of parents came in with coughs and colds. When DH got one he stayed away for five days even though it broke his heart.

Some people have no idea what it’s like spending so much time in NICU. We had two months of it and then thanks to the WC almost straight back into paeds HDU which was a whole new circle of hell.

Do what you’re comfortable with.

SinkGirl · 03/10/2019 17:59

What about the nurses that work in your babies ward? Do you know for 100% certainty that that all have had the jab?

Yep. Every single member of staff who worked in our NICU had flu and pertussis vaccinations. I know this because after DT2 contracted pertussis we had this discussion. I think most trusts require all HCPs to have the flu vaccination actually.

WispyTurnip · 03/10/2019 18:02

@Blueoasis, you had the vaccine twice, which would have prevented you getting the most prevalent strains from those particular years. Obviously an individual year's vaccine, while the WHO recommends which strains to include annually, will not have all strains contained in it, so it would be possible for you to catch two different flus twice in a single 'flu season. (This happened more often than usual in 2018 because the vaccine didn't 'match' the prevalent type of flu very well, so more people caught it despite being vaccinated.)

But the chances of you actually catching strains of flu you weren't vaccinated against several times in each of the two years you had the vaccine simply isn't at all likely.

Dodoluded · 03/10/2019 18:10

I had the flu jab last year and ended
Up in intensive care with flu.

Use your effort to practice good hygiene techniques with everyone like simple hand washing.

Pollydocket · 03/10/2019 18:22

Do they really need to hold the baby?

I wouldn’t even dream of holding such a vulnerable baby.

My PIL were the type to put the their selfish needs over a small baby. They visited my four week old whilst they has Ecoli. Who the fuck does that?
WHen challenged their response “ we wanted to see the baby”

elliejjtiny · 03/10/2019 18:23

Congratulations on your baby Op and hope you are able to bring her home soon. You must be so excited. Yanbu at all. My in-laws gave the flu to my born at term 8 month old and now I insist they have the flu jab every year. They do it, although they probably think I'm BVU especially now that the baby in question is now at secondary school . You don't take risks with the flu though. My baby was really poorly with it.

SinkGirl · 03/10/2019 18:24

If your mother in law had flu there is no way she would be able to get out of bed let alone hold your baby. She or anyone else is hardly going to be unaware that she has the flu , trust me

Do people still not understand that you can spread the virus before symptoms develop? If not, there’d be no flu epidemics would there, as everyone with flu would be home in bed and not spreading it.

🤦‍♀️

Moondancer73 · 03/10/2019 18:25

YABU. You can't dictate that she has the flu jab, and even if she has it she could still bring the germs into your home and pas them on even if she doesn't have flu.
The jab is only effective against one strain of flu too, so she could have it and get another strain. Very silly

justasking111 · 03/10/2019 18:31

This year DH, 18 17 year old DS and I got the flu. OH mocked me for going every year. I was up and about after four days. DS was almost admitted to hospital but horse sized doses of antibiotics staved that off. OH was ill for three weeks and then developed pleurisy, he is still not 100%. He is having the jab this autumn.

Your MIL is silly not having the jab, I would not hesitate to ban her. When my DIL had preemie twins for the first year or so no-one in the family went near them when we had bugs let alone the flu.

justasking111 · 03/10/2019 18:32

sorry 18 should not be in there, I wish there was an edit button on this site.

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