To get DS vaccinated against chickenpox...

[RowboatsinDisguise]

Mostly because I can’t be arsed with dealing with it?

DH at the grand age of 31 still hasn’t had chickenpox apparently. He was around kids with chickenpox as a child and never got it so is possibly immune. DS will be 2 in a couple of months and is at nursery so does have the potential to pick up CP and bring it home. I’m pregnant with DC2 and can’t think of much worse than dealing with a toddler with CP, and a newborn, let alone if it turns out DH isn’t immune.

Would the GP check DH’s immunity do you think? If he’s not immune, I could just get them both vaccinated. I’m generally speaking a bit suspicious of anything that isn’t part of the routine schedule (not an anti vaxxer at all obviously, just trust the experts to make the right decisions about what is offered) but it all seems perfectly safe.

Mines was vaccinated at the same time as mmr. Isn’t it just the done thing?

Both of my kids had the jab when they were 2-3. My friend is a GP and told me it was a no brainer to give it to them if you can afford it, so that was good enough for me!

The CP vaccine is not on the U.K. schedule, other vaccines are given alongside mmr but not for CP.
DS2 had mild CP at a week old as DS1 was full of it. He's 15 now and and never had it again. I often wonder about his immunity though.

Marpan not sure where you are based, but the NHS don't offer it so you have to pay for it elsewhere.

My dd ended up in hospital when she got cp due to infected spots (mouth, throat, neck etc). She was only 6 months and hadn’t really taken to solids and she couldn’t eat/drink anything.

I would definitely have had mine vaccinated if I knew how bad it could be. Just check to see how long the immunity lasts for and he can have a booster when he’s older.

I would and will.

I will say definitely get it done before you have the baby. I took DS1 when he was 20months and DS2 was newborn. They advised I didn't get it done then because the child can come out mildly in spots after the vaccine and would then be contagious to the newborn, so I didn't go ahead. When DS2 is 12 months I will be down getting them both done.

We did it privately. The country my husband is from gives as normal childhood vaccines. Children can get really sick from chicken pox.

If I had another child I would vaccinate. My DN was extremely poorly when she caught CP. She developed sepsis and had to be transferred from our local hospital to Southampton. So many people think it's always just mild unfortunately.

Both my children were vaccinated as born in Australia where it is standard (and there is very little chicken pox about as a result, at least where we lived)

I had cp as a child and was extremely ill so I would definitely have paid for it if it hadnt been standard.

Pp mentions it doesn't last forever. My kids were vaccinated by an English doctor, working in Australia. She told me that they don't actually know the length of immunity, but this is often something trotted out as a reason not to do it. We don't know the length of immunity for lots of vaccines. The NHS do mention this a lot when it comes to the CP vaccine and my cynical mind wonders if it is to justify the fact they won't pay for it.

My own MMR wore off for example. I had it as a child and was found to have no immunity to rubella when I was pregnant so 🤷‍♀️ I think that risk is always there.

One warning - my DD did actually still catch a form of chicken pox when it went round her entire class when we moved back to the UK. The levels of virus in that classroom may have been off the scale as about 20 of them went down with it within a few months in reception. She got about 5 spots but none of them were deep. She had a low grade temp with it but felt absolutely fine. Dr advised me it was most likely an 'immune response' - so the vaccine kicking in and responding? (Not sure!) Anyway school didn't believe that for a minute so she had a week off school even though she was fine 😂

I wish I had had dd vaccinated before ds was born.

Dd was 22 months when she caught cp, and absolutely fine bar the discomfort. Ds caught it from her at 11 weeks old and was incredibly ill - he still has long-term complications 6 years later.

At a minimum definitely get it for your dh if you possibly can - it can be really awful in adults.

I would absolutely do it if I had another child. I wasn't really aware of the possibility to vaccinate and Dts were very very ill with cp.

I was going to have dd vaccinated against it but she was still immune from me and caught shingles

I got it. They can get another shot as an adult if it wears off. I couldnt face the time off work looking after a sick child when I didnt need to. Its part of the routine vaccinations in many other countries

I would vaccinate.

DD2 suffered terribly with CP.

If I'd know how badly children could be affected by CP then I would have vaccinated DDs.

The nhs stance in this I find a bit annoying. They basically say they want everyone to catch chicken pox while they are young to provide immunity. And one of the reasons they don’t want to vaccinate is in case unvaccinated children end up catching as adults. But the official advice is also that they don’t agree with chicken pox parties. So which is it? Do they want to spread it around children or not? I could have deliberately gone to friends house to get chicken pox but we didn’t as I felt this was against advice. Then we ended with a nine year old who still hadn’t caught it. The nhs theories around it all don’t make a huge amount of sense.

We got it for ours (2doses) The only reason they can't categorically state that it gives lifetime immunity is that it has only been part of the regular schedule in places like the us and Australia for 20 ish years. As an adult if you're worried about it you can get another booster I presume.
For me it was a really easy decision- I didn't want the risk or hassle of chickenpox so it was worth the money to vaccinate

They wouldn't need the shingles vaccination program for older people if children were vaccinated against chicken pox

I don't think that's right. You can't "catch" shingles, you have to have had chicken pox first. So I don't think it matters if you've had the CP illness or CP vaccine, you will still need the shingles vaccine.

My DH didn't get CP until he was about 25 which I think is quite strange as he was one of four children, you'd have thought he would have been exposed to it at some point.

I couldnt face the time off work looking after a sick child when I didnt need to

This. People on MN are terrified of CP but I actually think in most cases it IS a mild illness and not worth worrying about. But if you can avoid the hassle and stress of looking after a sick child and can afford it, why not. But ds had it anyway when he was very young and fortunately timed it for the Easter holidays so we didn't need to take much time off work.

Although the immunity thing is quite weird. My mum had shingles multiple times. Since having had the vaccine, nothing. So why did the vaccine stop it but she had it several times? And it's not like she had shingles very mildly, she felt grotty with it every time.

I got DD the chickenpox vaccine when she was about 14 months I think.
I knew that other countries do it as standard and felt that because we can afford to get it, we should. I'll make sure she gets a booster when she's older, it was reassuring to me, I'd read the stats about children being hospitalised by chickenpox and just didn't want to have to face the two weeks off work even if she had it mildly. And to be honest, it scared me that if it wasn't mild, she could be really really ill.
She had no adverse reaction to either jab, so our experience was positive.

We had ours done at Boots... 2 doses, £140.

The NHS thinking, according to their website, is that if children get chickenpox they are exposing the adult population to the chickenpox virus which will top up their immunity. But if children are vaccinated they won't be spreading it and providing top up protection to adults......

Sounds OK until you consider that if children are immunised they won't be spreading it in the community therefore it won't be around in the population at high enough levels for anyone to catch it.... Which is what we use vaccines for anyway

I looked up which countries do it as part of the routine childhood vaccine programme and which do not.....And it becomes clear this is primarily a cost cutting exercise.

Oh, I would add though that the pharmacist who did the injections was quite insistent that DD shouldn't have close contact with pregnant women after she'd had either jab, so not sure what the exact rules are regarding that to be honest.

@cologne4711 - I thought I'd read somewhere that the chicken pox vaccine made it 78% less likely that the person would develop shingles. I could well be wrong though but if you have immunity to chicken pox because of the vaccine and never get it, and shingles is a response to chicken pox, then wouldn't that reduce the chance or possibility of getting shingles? Can you tell from my haphazard explanation that I'm not a doctor!

We got our dd vaccinated as didn't want to be getting pox before travelling/interfering with work or just the discomfort for her getting it (although I know it is fairly mild usually). My husband didn't know if he had it but he got a private blood test to confirm he did indeed have antibodies. I had the same test in pregnancy as a family member came out with shingles and I panicked. In that case the local GP did it for free.

Do it. I had mine two years ago aged 23