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

I was a child in the days before whooping cough vaccines, and just before polio vaccines came in. Two of my friends got polio during the last epidemic in this country. One died, and one was left disabled for life. I got whooping cough and can still remember coughing myself unconscious. Apparently I went blue in the face. I was suffocating. Try holding your breath until you can't bear it. Bad whooping cough is worse than that. All these illnesses are killers, and they don't kill kindly.

Unless you are a qualified medical researcher, it's very difficult to get clear information from research. My advice would be to accept that there is a lot of misinformation out there, that it's true some vaccines have done damage but the ones given to young children are tried and tested, and unless you want your child to run the (growing) risk of catching a disease that will make them suffer badly, or even die, then vaccinate them.

Doctors advise this because they know from their own experience that vaccines work. Sadly, more of them are now seeing children getting these diseases we thought were defeated, and seeing the brain damage, the blindness, the deafness, the other disabilities and the deaths that could have been avoided. Vaccinate.

Exactly!

But also, these diseases can and are coming back. The world is a smaller place now. People travel more and can bring in diseases from other parts of the world. The people who are not vaccinated are at risk of contracting the diseases and spreading them again and the people who are not vaccinated are at risk.

My kiddo had all vaccinations, additional including synagis for rsv. We’ve had rsv, whooping cough, hib and sepsis. I genuinely don’t want to think how bad these would’ve been without the vaccinations as each time it’s been terrifying.

This. X 100000 it's not something to debate.

DH cousin caught measles age 3 in the 60s. She ended up with severe brain damage and died at 40.

Most vaccines have been finely tuned over years and years of research OP.

Covid vaccines were totally different as the virus was new and vaccines developed fast. My teenage (at the time) DC refused this one themselves but have both had all other vaccines.

I even paid for DS1 to have the HPV vaccine as it was introduced a year too late for him at school. Girls have had it for years but boys didn’t.
It protects against various cancers.

HPV vaccine wasn’t a thing when I was young and my DSis got an HPV cancer a few years ago. It was fast growing and aggressive. Luckily she was operated on and treated very quickly

My DM chose not to fully vaccinate me and DBro in the 70s and 80s. DBro caught mumps and is infertile as an adult which is a common effect of mumps. I caught whooping cough and felt ill for months. Thankfully I've managed to catch-up on most
Everytime I have to fill out a vaccination form for work (healthcare) I am acutely aware of the missing vaccines and strange timescales of the ones I had.
It's worth noting that DM has all the vaccines offered to herself...

There's an outbreak of measles in Texas right now. Every person who catches COVID will pass it on to about 1.2 people. Every person who catches measles passes it on to over 10.

It’s difficult because you’re doing something to a currently healthy child and your overwhelming instinct is to protect. I can only tell you my reasoning and where I landed back in the day.

I looked at good sources of evidence - the policies of all civilised countries including those with health systems that far outperform the U.K. Interestingly, most of these countries offer more vaccinations than the U.K. does e.g. against chicken pox. Most human beings are decent and don’t want to hurt kids! It seemed to me vanishingly unlikely that all the scientists, biochemists, doctors etc in all these countries, most of whom are parents too would recommend something likely to be harmful to most children. My own family included two mothers with high tier biochemistry and medical careers. They were big vaccination supporters, also having done well informed research for themselves.

Much harm has been done by those who deny (for what they think are benign purposes and with little faith in the lay audience’s ability to weigh things up) that vaccines can and do cause side effects and/or damage to some individuals. Yes, this is a fact and it happens. But it’s very rare. It comes down to a numbers game. The likelihood of a child suffering adverse consequences from measles or polio or meningitis is far higher statistically than the likelihood of vaccine damage. Therefore it seemed to me that the prudent parent vaccinates.

I also chose to have my youngest child vaccinated against chicken pox after she’d been exposed to it many times without succumbing. I remember too well how ill I was with it when I caught it in my teens - additionally my friend’s child was hospitalised with it and, less serious of course but still distressing, badly scarred by it.

Finally, no use with babies of course, but when your child is older a tip first shared with me by my sister in law! Older cousin talked robustly and with contempt to my little one about seeing a child sobbing after a vaccination in a doctor’s waiting room ‘ Silly sausage’ quoth he - ‘ you say ow for 1 minute, then it’s over and you go off to play’. She also advocated the handing of a chocolate lolly to child immediately pre jab with exhortation to take a bite and chew at time of injection - worked a treat.

I hope this helps. All the best.

I find it hard to trust anyone who questions vaccinations - they save lives.
Glad to read you were sensible and got your child vaccinated.
We’re so lucky to live in a time where we don’t have to prevalently experience the effects of preventable diseases like polio, measles, meningitis etc.
Those who say they didn’t vaccinate and never had any issues - it’s only because everyone else is vaccinated that there are no diseases to pass on to your children 🤷‍♀️

My dad has been deaf his whole life since he caught measles at age 2. I remember my grandmother crying about how guilty she felt putting him into the childcare where he had caught it and how if only it had been a couple of years later she could have had him vaccinated and what a difference it would have made to his life. Truthfully he nearly died. It's weird to think now me and my kids would never have existed.

With the vaccines I think it's hard for people to keep statistics in their heads and truly make sense of them. Serious adverse reactions to vaccines are hugely rare but publicised out of proportion- like how safe flying is but how disproportionate it feels when one plane crash is in the news for a week but noone mentions the million flights that went smoothly.

I have genetic researchers and doctors in my family and I take comfort from the fact they understand how to evaluate things like vaccinations from a critical knowledgable standpoint in a way that I can't. And they all vaccinated without hesitation, not even one, even for Covid and for everyone of their kids.

It's hard to do though. You feel awful when they cry at the needle and when they get that slight fever the next day. But I truly believe it's an act of love. And I think back on how devastating measles has been in my own family to steel myself.

I do understand how hard it can be for some mothers to take a decision on this, because basically if our child gets an infection it could be seen as an act of god, but if a child gets some adverse reaction to a vaccine (however vanishingly rare this is) it will be because of that mother's own decision.

The instinct to protect our children is hard wired and atavistic and it can be difficult to think logically about it.

You say: "it all feels like a box ticking exercise not because the NHS are actually worried about my baby." I think this is so very wrong. They are ticking the boxes to save your child's life - the boxes are there for them to tick because they know protecting children is a priority. To see it in any other way is highly cynical.

One of my DDs was born during the MMR vaccine scare - which proved to be a complete scam by a doctor with a financial interest. She did not have the whooping cough vaccination and got whooping cough - she is late 40s now and still suffers the after effects.

Vaccination is global - every country and every government who can afford it vaccinate their children. We help those countries who cannot afford it - it is vital.

Try to overcome your natural desire to avoid any remote chance of harm to your baby and do the right thing.

What facts are you looking for exactly?

Vaccines save lives and prevent horrible diseases.That's a fact that's been known for decades all around the world

Bloody hell. Can the people piling on to the OP look at the bloody date of the thread. It’s from January 2024 so over a year old and the OP has confirmed she had her baby vaccinated. At least read her updates if you can’t be arsed to read the rest.