To ask about unvaxxed niece and nephew visiting newborn?

[Palmface]

I'm due to have a baby in the next week or so, and it's just occurred to me that my niece and nephew (15 and 13yo) are not vaccinated for most things. They didn't have any of the routine schedule as their mum is strongly antivax, but now that my db and her are divorced and db has sole custody, he is slowly looking into them catching up. They have had their covid jabs but that's it, nothing else yet. So there really isn't time to get them vaccinated before baby comes.

Is it risky to have them come and cuddle the baby etc when they haven't been vaccinated? I'm thinking of the ones like measles mumps and rubella where we rely on herd immunity for the early stages of baby's life.

Yabu - let them come
Yanbu - it's too risky

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That’s a hard no from me. You, your husband and anyone else expecting to be in close contact with a newborn should be getting a whooping cough top up, at the very least.

@CassandraBarrett the whooping cough vaccine lasts years I think, but you get it again each pregnancy after about 25 weeks as that’s how the baby gets some protection from it. I don’t know why a fresh dose transfers to baby while the standard residual protection doesn’t, but that seems to be what’s going on.

My doctor advised me that anyone coming into contact with my baby needed pertussis (whooping cough) vax at the very least.

It is offered/given to pregnant women automatically. My husband was told to get a booster. The other adults in my child’s life all had recent vaccinations, either because they have had their own children recent’s and received the same advice or because they had grandchildren recently and their children insisted on vaccinations before meeting their grandchildren.

My eldest had been in contact with a kid with chicken pox at nursery three days before my second baby was born.

obviously no routine vaccinations for that in place.

Midwife advised that the baby should carry my immunity so it wouldn’t be a problem if my toddler got it and if the baby got it would be likely to be very mild.

Neither of them got it at that point in the end.

Does the baby not get protection from the mother having the whooping cough vaccination when pregnant for the weeks until they have theirs? I seem to remember this from having mine, although DS is 6 months so that's enough time for my brain to be making stuff up

I'd be inclined to say yes given Covid jabs. In the absence of health visitor advice to the contrary.

Hi - exactly same scenario big anti vax sisters and one was visiting when babe was newborn so I got family to ask if her son was vaccinated turned out he was but all the other nieces and nephews of other sister are not so I said they could not visit until she was 1. They live far away so was not really as issue but they have their principles they stick to and I have mine.

When I took my 5 week old to A&E due to a temp, the nurse took him out of the waiting room and into a private room because he hadn’t had his vaccinations yet. I get that this was a hospital with sick people so there was more chance of him catching something but people can carry viruses and not show any symptoms.

im sure there’s 8 diseases they’re vaccinated against at 8 weeks - Men B, Polio, Diphtheria, Hep B, flu, tetanus, whooping cough and rotavirus.

all horrible diseases and I wouldn’t take the risk as herd immunity won’t protect against them all I don’t think. Plus some aren’t as severe in teenagers/adults or have delayed onset of symptoms so they could have one of them and not know.

Maybe poster is confusing baby with a puppy 🤣😂

Ah ok thank you for the explanation!

So much ignorance on this thread re infection and infectivity. I wouldn't be taking chances with my baby's health.
Speak to your health visitor/gp.

Our DIL asked all of her family and ours to have a DTP booster before baby was born. We happily complied. I would not let unvaccinated children near a newborn, it’s not just COVID that would concern me.

Unless you don't plan to leave the house ever until your own child has had their full schedule of childhood vaccinations (age 3?) You are being unreasonable. Will you be checking vaccination certificates of every visitor? Other people may not have vaccinated their children or be unvaccinated adults, you'd never know, people don't tend to shout about it. Strange he got them the covid vaccination first, of all the vaccinations out there that'd be bottom of the pile for their age group.

Eugh, antivaxx relatives are a nightmare, sorry OP. You’d be doing your niecephews
a favour talking to them without their mum about how important vaccines are. That’s how I would get my own back on her 😁

Take action- Get your husband to book them an app to get vax asap.

Sorry meant your brother!!

Go with your gut instinct. If you don't feel comfortable having unvaxed people around you baby, just tell them no. You don't have to justify this to anyone. This is your baby and you make the decision x

Even puppies get immunity from their mothers 😂

No. I think you don't understand what immunity is. I have already provided a link to the NHS explanation - I presume you think the NHS might be an impeccable source of information on basic health? If you wish to be pedantic, there is no such thing as immunity, even for the vaccinated. Vaccinations do not give immunity, so a vaccinated person is as much a risk of transmission as an unvaccinated one. As I have already explained, vaccinations train the immune system to react to certain invading viruses. That triggers an immune response which helps the body to repel the invader, or at least reduce the seriousness of the infection. Everyone is born with a certain level of "inherited" immunity from their mother, and this is topped up by breast-feeding (one of the many reasons why breast is best wherever possible). But if either a vaccinated or an unvaccinated person is in the early stages of a disease before symptoms become apparant, then they are equally capable of transmitting the disease. That is why vaccinated people can still catch and transmit Covid.

So if someone want to ensure that a baby never comes into contact with any infectious disease they should keep it away from everyone, including the parents (who can just as easily infect the child as anyone else).

Yeah but you still have to keep them indoors until they’re fully jabbed up. humans not so much 🤣😂

I had a friend who was anti vax and I was worried about my baby mixing with hers. I asked the nurse what to do and she said to stay away, yes you could come into contact with unvaxed kids unknowingly but if you know the child isn’t vaxed then stay away.

I don’t have a clue why anyone wouldn’t get them the diseases cause death.

Thanks all for the replies. I think db got them their covid jabs first as the kids were particularly keen, and he's just been a bit lazy with the others. The kids are definitely on board with vaccinations, they know their dm has odd views about many things so it's probably just a matter of db getting them booked in.

I think you're overthinking it. Are you going to take your child to baby and toddler groups? Because these will be full of children who aren't fully vaccinated (as you don't get the second MMR until three years four months).

The ex sil is a staunch anti western medicine conspiracy theorist, avid fox news watcher and also believes women don't belong in the workplace (those poor men now can't get jobs), so it's a pattern of bonkers beliefs.. luckily the kids aren't stupid and have spent the last few years unlearning her nonsense