To ask for vaccine reassurance

[24hoursfromTulsamom]

My 15 month old is overdue for his one year immunisations and I’m feeling stressed about it. I want him to get them asap (postponed due to illness - his and the nurse’s) because I don’t want him to get sick and he’s in daycare, but also I have anxiety and there is a tiny part of me that worries about autism.

To be clear, I know the MMR stuff has been discredited and the guy struck off. But I have two autistic siblings, one very severely disabled, and there’s a tiny part of me that is fearful. I know it’s in his best interests to have his shots but I wish there was someone who could put my mind at rest. Are there any moms on here who have had a similar experience? I was nervous about the covid jab too but still had two shots of it while pregnant and was fine obviously.

I am not an antivaxxer and do not want to hear from antivaxxers - it’s an anxiety thing and I would just like some kind words to make me feel less worried. Thanks

By what stretch of the imagination is not vaccinating your child not taking any risks?

I am someone who has been vaccine damaged so know that a very small number of people do unfortunately have reactions.

However, I didn't hesitate to give my children all the childhood vaccines as they are so very, very throughly researched with millions upon millions of doses over decades. There is also some evidence that some vaccines (BCG) actually prevent deaths from other illnesses (I can't find the source right now).

I decided (after lots of reading) that the risks to my child if I didn't vaccinate them were definitely greater than the risks of the vaccines.

Your child may or may not have ASD (it seems to be very heritable) but they won't get it from a vaccine. It was quite clear to me at birth that my child with ASD was atypical (although I was told I was wrong for many years...). I was almost looking for it due to the family history though.

My DS2 was DXed with ASD at 3 when my DS3 was 6 months old. Right in the middle of all the furore in the late 1990s. I couldn’t bring myself to vaccinate DS3 with MMR until he was 5 and I was reassured he wasn’t autistic. He is, however, quite quirky. I feel embarrassed about it all now and given my time again I would have vaccinated earlier.

I don't know what you do about anxiety. You'd think with all the anxiety-full MNers that MNers would be masters at advising how to dispel anxiety. I suppose that you have to accept that no decision is perfect, and that we all make the best decision we can. Just because you're worried won't make a bad thing happen or not happen, and just because somebody says something happened doesn't mean it did. People just make crap up.

If you read Brian Deer's exposé of Wakefield... it's nuts. Deer went & talked to parents of the participants. Some of whom didn't even know that their child was a subject in that article. Personal histories of the children were literally falsified or hugely exaggerated. Test results were falsified & exaggerated. Coauthors were lied to about the data and how the test results would be interpreted and reported. The number of children studied was very small and there was no sensible control group. Even if AW hadn't just made up data & case histories, the observations were at worst suggestive of something gone wrong in the guts of some children who might or might not have been representative of other kids with autism, many steps away from rising to the dizzy heights of indicative that something in the MMR caused their problems. And even further away from amounting to evidence you could use to make decisions with. And of course many of the study children were hand-selected by a lawyer trying to get compensation for them ... more about obtaining something emotional than money for the parents, because the parents wanted someone or something to blame. They wanted some kind of justice for their child's condition.

Almost everything else that has followed after Wakefield, trying to promote vaccines->autism claim, has convoluted self-perpetuating conspiracy theory logic at its foundations. You do not want that rubbish to be how you make decisions.

@MadamMaltesers please keep your children inside your house until they are vaccinated. Please keep them away from my children.

Anti vaxxers are some of the worst kinds of people on this earth. Dangerous, ignorant, naive, foolish idiots. All of them.

This is unhelpful, people need reassurance and education not to be sneered at. Vaccine injury is a valid concern but with education can be overcome. Being castigated as an idiot is not going to help anyone, people will just be pushed underground and will go down a rabbit hole and become more entrenched.

My sibling died aged 14 from what is now a vaccine preventable disease.

I can’t tell you just how much I’d rather have them back with a higher % chance of autism. Not that there is any proven link between vaccines and autism. To be blunt, There’s very proven links between contracting certain viruses and bacteria and death.

Single vaccines imported into this country haven’t been independently tested for potency and toxicity. We have evidence that some of the single vaccines are less effective or less safe than MMR.

Unlike MMR, where the evidence shows no link, no study has been conducted to look at single vaccines and either autism or bowel disease. In fact, there’s no reason to think that single vaccines would be less likely to cause autism or bowel disease than MMR.

Parents are asking for single vaccines as they’re scared by the unfounded stories they’ve heard and read about MMR, not because there is any evidence that single vaccines are any safer.

I lifted this from here

I'm sure I have read somewhere that you can't get all three single vaccines because they aren't licensed.

Thank you. Some really good info here, and some total bollocks, but mostly very reassuring. We are booked in for Monday. I would have done it sooner but for him being unwell and the nurse advising to wait, and then also being unwell.

I would never let my anxiety affect my child’s health so this was just for me to feel better. I so appreciate it, because it will make me less stressed and able to focus on supporting him through the jabs and fever etc.

This is unhelpful, people need reassurance and education not to be sneered at. Vaccine injury is a valid concern but with education can be overcome. Being castigated as an idiot is not going to help anyone, people will just be pushed underground and will go down a rabbit hole and become more entrenched.

@QueenoftheNimbleFlyingCat there is a huge amount of information available at the click of a mouse for anyone able to use the internet around vaccines.

It's not my job to educate; people should educate themselves - using credible sources - and not come to a dangerous convolution based on the work of a charlatan and social media hearsay.

I'll say it again - anti vaxxers are dangerous, foolish people and they should keep their children away from others.

It's very rare, but measles causes SSPE (a fatal form of encephalitis) that can strike any time between a few months and about 25 years after the acute infection. It is entirely down to the wild strain of the virus -has not been found at all, ever, arising from vaccination strains

Another awful fact about measles, it disrupts your immune system causing it to "forget" how to fight infections including ones it has already encountered. This immune suppression can last as long as 2-3 years after infection.

My dad caught measles as a child. He was in intensive care and very poorly. He was left blind in one eye and with significant vision loss in the other.
This has a profound impact on his entire life and would have almost certainly been prevented by vaccinations.

It's a dreadful disease. Please get in touch with the GP surgery and I'm sure they'll offer you support & reassurance.

I believe you can have them done seperately/spaced out rather than combined in the MMR. Several in my ante-natal did this as they believed it was less likely to trigger side effects.

@Willyoujustbequiet how long ago was this? I don't think it is easy or possible right now.

It was about 8 years to be honest. Done privately.

I have an open mind but both of mine were vaccinated, and have autism, but I honestly don't think vaccination had any role in this. With the eldest, it was right at the time of all the MMR controversy, and many mothers I knew were paying privately for separate vaccinations. Looking back, it was obvious there was something wrong well before the vaccinations - really early talking, moving etc. With the second, one of the GPs had a particular word with me about it (not instigated by me) along the lines of it's not like a typical vaccine and more or less warning me off). However, I went ahead and now it has become obvious she has more typical higher functioning autism symptoms, but completely different to my first.
I think in both cases the vaccines had nothing to do with their development.

Well done for making a choice that YOU consider to be right and that you are comfortable with.
I know you are specifically discussing the MMR vaccine, but my DH was at A&E with a burnt hand last night and there were babies there with Whooping Cough. (Pertussis). While their parents were stridently arguing their case against vaccination, their babies were struggling to breathe. The saddest thing was a young mum who clearly wanted the baby vaccinated and the older father still shouting forth his OPINION against vaccination (and other conspiracy BS). Those poor babies. It’s starting to get cold here in Aus and now is when little ones start to get sick, and these parents crawl out of the woodwork. The doctors and nurses can only advise parents about current health advice and not slap them around no matter how they feel about it. You could see they were visibly upset about these poor babies too.

They aren't all available privately and when they were, they were less effective. And poor kid having 3 times the number of needles for no reason.

oh dear. your ante-natal group not terribly bright then?

Good for you ignoring the nutters. hope all is ok on Monday.

You do realise that if your child comes to harm from measles it will be your fault. Not sure how you will live with this if they get brain damage. And of course if they do get measles and recover you've got an anxious 7-8 years waiting to see if they get SSPE. I see this a lot at work - the feeling that if as a parent you take no action and your child is ill, it isn't your fault, it's just bad luck. . But your decision not to vaccinate is action, bordering on neglect.

@mycoffeecup @RampantIvy just fyi: I have two children and mine are fully vaccinated and aren't autistic. This wasn't me saying I'm against it but I know what anxiety and panic can cause, so if there is an alternative, why not go down that route but clearly there isn't. Someone in the office every ent down that route but that's just after it had come out 16 years ago. It seems OP has found comfort from what people said though which is positive.

The single jabs are fine and effective (indeed many of the stats on vaccine coverage for measles are based on any jab containing it, whether MMR, the older/rarer double measles or single measles)

You can't get them like that at the moment though because single mumps isn't manufactured at all at present, and availability of rubella and measles vaccines singly is at best erratic.

Why not discuss your concerns with the GP or nurse rather than internet randoms.