To vaccinate newborn or not

[confusedaboutclothes]

I know this is a very sensitive subject, but i’m asking please for FACTS only - I don’t want answers like ‘because the NHS recommends you to vaccinate your baby etc’

Id like to point out i’m not ‘anti vax’ as such, but covid really opened my eyes to researching vaccines etc i’ve done my own research on whether i should be vaccinating my newborn but it’s hard to find unbiased facts.

What I don’t like, is the pressure that is put on us to do as we’re told with our babies. I don’t like the constant reminders, the phone calls and the pressure to vaccinate - it all feels like a box ticking exercise not because the NHS are actually worried about my baby.

Please be kind, I really am confused about this and would love some different perspectives

Despite all the posts calling me stupid, and mocking my way of ‘research’ i’m still really grateful i’m posted as there has been a lot of information here that i never would have known otherwise.

To people calling me stupid for using google, i really only had that as a starting point. Everything is taken with a pinch of salt, but i don’t have access to anything else, so where else would I start? As mentioned before i have spoken to GP and health visitor but was only ever pointed back to the NHS website.

I knew this thread would have some strong replies and that’s fine because it has made it feel all the more real.

I will get my child vaccinated as the facts clearly speak for themselves, facts i couldn’t access before (or at least not in ways i could understand).

If we could please stop with the rudeness
though as i’m simply just a mother trying to educate myself on what’s best for my baby,
which i now understand is vaccination.

Please vaccinate. I am still having issues from missing a vaccination in the 90s when i was a child.

@confusedaboutclothes Some people had bad reactions/symptoms from the covid jab. I imagine negative consequences of the routine vaccines are far, far less common.

No you can not speed up the amount to time it was injected into the human trial volunteers and the time it was declared safe for the whole population. Drugs are tested for years and years before being approved to use in general pop. Because newly developed drugs can get 8 years into a trial and be found to be helping the heart condition it's being developed for but also causing cancer so that drug is then not put into use! It takes years to find side effects you can not speed it up.

The problem isn't you googling. It is thinking that that is research and calling it that. It isn't. Googling would be the first step in acquiring information for everyone, that in itself is totally fine. Just remember that a lot of people who aren't scientifically minded also post on the internet. And they're really good in making you feel scared or guilty.

“I am just curious as to why anti vaxxers feel so strongly”

The same reason people drink until they can’t stand up, then drive their cars.

The same reason people stuff their faces with sugary fatty food then wonder why they are overweight, with heart issues and diabetes.

The same reason people ignore warnings about walking in dangerous places like on Snowdon wearing flip flops, or beside the sea when the waves have been whipped up to 20 feet by a storm, or let their kids play on inflatables in areas with rip tides.

Because some people think they know better than the people who actually do know better, or sadly are too ignorant to realise how ignorant they are.

I agree with the HPV vaccine too. That will save lives.

I find it hard to believe any medical professional (which an epidemiologist is) would say that vaccines are the only way to get lifelong immunity, and that they do always give that.

It's always been known that some vaccines simply do not work for some people. As an example, I have had BCG 3 times (as a young teen in late 80's, and twice while working in high risk areas in NHS) and they simply do not give me any level of immunity. I'm immune to the vaccine as it were! Where as my brother has never had a BCG yet shows as having immunity when tested (our Dad had TB in his teens).

I'm sure there are many papers out there on length of immunity for various vaccines.

@twnety I'm not sure why you highlighted the £5 payment as that isn't the worst aspect of what Wakefield did.

I've helped in research projects and been given shopping vouchers for my time. More tellingly when I put my DD forward to help in a research project, when she was nearly 2 years old, we got nothing. (It was simply to see if you could do a test on small children that you did on adults and get valid results.)

I wouldn't call what Wakefield did research as amongst the people involved in each study I've taken part in from the design phrase onwards was someone who was clearly the study's statistician. (They had various titles.)

I also have had to sign pages of stuff explain the purpose of the research project and the stage I was involved in.

I have friends and acquaintances who have been involved in research studies where they have had to undergo the invasive procedures Wakefield did. Some of these studies were done before Wakefield's stuff happened. Each person could tell me in detail the purpose of the studies they were involved in plus other boring but relevant information. The most invasive and risky ones only involved young men.

I also have friends and acquaintances due to the accident or illness they had ended up being a case study for a procedure. In their cases it was either have the procedure then see what happened or end up with an amputation/dead.

I had chickenpox as a child - I remember it over 50 years later as I was so sick. I recovered with no obvious long term effects. Of course like everybody who has had chickenpox the virus never goes away. I have had several bouts of shingles. I have swallowed handfuls of antivirals and had the shingles vaccine. I only wish a vaccine had been available when I was a child. So don't think it's just a minor childhood thing.

Agree.

Simple example.

As a child I got the whooping cough vaccination.

As a pregnant adult I got the whooping cough vaccination.

My DD, the child I was pregnant with, has also had the whooping cough vaccination.

If it gave me life long immunity I wouldn't need it twice.

No one was given protection from legal action. Only spurious headlines have ever claimed that.

In order to get a vaccine and fast, which doesn't mean less testing btw (MRNA vaccines have been in testing for many years before covid), the Government provided an assurance that they would pay any claims resulting from vaccine damage. Pfizer, and the other companies, can still be sued.

All medication comes with risks. Even paracetamol ad ibuprofen. No drug, or vaccine, or medication, is risk free. Pfizer wasn't protected from legal action, but in order to speed the process up, and remove the risk that every drug company exposes themselves to with every single thing they make and might hold them back while it's all sorted, the Government basically insured the risk. Their insurance covers any payouts caused by legal action against the drug companies when it comes to the Covid vaccine

Wakefield is dodgy and full of sh*t, pedding conspiracy theories for sure.

I wouldn’t get my baby vaccinated

I think people struggle with this decision because it's hard to compare the risks of vaccinating or not. Doing nothing feels less risky because you've caused nothing to change. The reality is that inaction can be more risky than doing something in many situations, and this is one of them.

My mum cba to get me the measles jab. I had a stonking case of it, which left me with a lifelong 30% loss of hearing in both ears. I struggled in school until they realized I couldn't hear the teacher. I've had to wear hearing aids my whole life, which completely wrecked my confidence socially. So thanks, mum.

My kids have had all of their jabs on schedule. I would never do to them what my mum did to me.

People cite Covid vaccine side effects as ‘proof vaccinations are bad for you’ but no vaccination has ever been on a massive rollout like that before, the percentage of side effects (as there is with any medication) was totally where it should be- it just seemed worse because SO many people were getting it.

All medical treatment of any type brings risks with it but the risk of significant injury/death from a vaccine is much much less than from the illness it’s protecting you from.

At the moment with take up rates at such a low, it’s even more likely your child will get one of the old, almost irradiated illnesses. You can leave them vulnerable from severe illness/death from it, or you can protect them with preventative medicine.

@MiddleagedBeachbum why not?

Absolutely wouldn't get a new vaccine again after Covid vaccine caused issues (as confirmed by consultant) so I understand that worry but any others I'd have no issue getting for my newborn. I did get swept up a bit with the MMR/autism saga bit then I figured even if there was a connection, there are far many worse outcomes if baby got M, M or R than the potential risk of developing autism.

This is a fantastic response.

Glad you decided to get your baby vaccinated op. Some people can be very harsh on mn even if you just ask a question. I wouldn't get a Covid vaccine again or ever give that to my child but would always insist on the childhood vaccines. They have been proven over many years to reliably protect against deadly diseases. The Covid vaccine was rushed and reports of many serious effects. Also the majority of us could get over Covid easily without a vaccine. It's completely different.

Haven't waded through all the responses. I would just point out that it's not just death stats you need to look at. Things like measles have a high complications rate, I think it's 1 in 15 that catch measles end up with a lifelong disability eg deafness. That's a very high and very real risk (there have been measles outbreaks in the UK in areas with low vaccination rates recently)

Can you please provide reports of these ‘serious effects’? I’d love to read a report. I’ve heard lots of conspiracy theories about the Covid vaccine and one or two stories which seem genuine although many seem to be down to delivery instead, but you seem to be suggesting that lots of people were seriously effected and I highly doubt that’s true. I imagine a tiny minority had side effects, which is true of pretty much everything.

@DrinkFeckArseBrick love the name! Yes my dads eyesight was damaged due to childhood measles

It's because all these doubts are being put into people's heads that we are now seeing massive surges in diseases that had more or less vanished - measles, whooping cough, diphtheria; and I believe polio might be back.

You come under pressure to vaccinate your child not because of a box-ticking exercise but because it's crucual to your child's health and the health of all the other children.