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

They save lives, although I did refuse the flu nasal alongside the MMR. In fact I refused all flu jabs.

Take a walk around an old churchyard and you will see families with babies and children lost year after year. One family in my church lost 6 children over 5 years. That's why they are needed.

I was a baby during some drama over the whooping cough vaccine. A nurse told my mum "I wouldn't have it for my babies" so my Mum didn't get me vaccinated. Luckily I survived, with only a week in intensive care, when I got whooping cough at 3 years old.

She has been totally open and said she just had a look on Google. She has come here to ask and I think it’s a good thing as she could have fallen down the rabbit hole as many anti-vaxxers do. There’s no need to be rude for the sake of it. She has taken on board everyone’s points and is listening. I think that’s a good thing and doesn’t require rudeness.

OP it's okay to space out or delay vaccines slightly. I did this, I found a website that allows you to check the vaccine schedule of EU countries, some countries give MMR and other vaccines later than they do in the UK and I felt more comfortable giving some later than the UK schedule with these other schedules in mind. You can also look for current WHO guidelines on timings of vaccines and minimum number of doses to provide protection. I started my babies off with vaccines against things that can cause meningitis, as that scares me the most, and followed up with other vaccines a little later, giving them time to recover between injections. I personally don't like them having so many in one go, but obviously most babies do just fine with this and this is just my personal feelings.

At the end of the day, I think one needs to ask "Do I know more than a medical professional?" and if you're really likely to find out more than they know from years of study on a website and be able to judge its accuracy. People like to make scary-sounding lists of ingredients which are actually found in plenty of things, because they know most people don't have that context.

One uses ones judgement. Is it more likely, on the information I have, that medical professionals are somehow my child at risk for money (and remember, this isn't the US, the NHS controls prices, individual medics can't somehow benefit from 'Big Pharma', I'm not sure they even can in the US) or is it more likely that vaccines have reduced child deaths massively in the last century and protect my child?

I didn't have the MMR vaccine until I was older (medically advised; I was allergic to egg and part was grown in egg white) and that was only safe because other children who could have it did so circulating levels were low.

So as well as helping your baby by giving them immunity, you're also helping other babies and children who are unable to have it by lowering the risk of them coming into contact with the disease.

never once did i say that?

Having a risk of getting a life threatening decease or vaccinate against it safely... get an appointment with GP to talk this through.. or go privately for a consultation to get your answers.

Fact - the cases of measles is on the rise throughout the country (more than double the number of cases in 2023 compared to previous years, especially in London)

Fact - babies, small children die from measles - worldwide a 43% increase in deaths last year compared to previous years

The newborn vaccinations cover measles, in my opinion you’d be an idiot not to vaccinate and to instead put your child’s life at risk.

You’d also in the future be risking the lives of other newborns that are not yet vaccinated. As your child grows up you would need to keep your child away from these children until they have had their vaccinations as there would be a risk you child could be in the early stages of having it and thus pass it on to other unvaccinated babies. If I knew someone’s child was voluntarily unvaccinated I’d be keeping well clear especially with an unvaccinated newborn. Not vaccinating is incredibly selfish and puts other lives at risk too.

My son caught an illness which has a vaccine against it. He was very seriously ill and we nearly lost him. Two years later and I am still very much traumatised…already tearing up as I write this.

Please, don’t go through what we went through. Don’t make your child suffer unnecessarily or cause yourself trauma. Vaccines save lives - and your child’s life is super precious to you, so don’t take unnecessary risks.

it all feels like a box ticking exercise not because the NHS are actually worried about my baby

This is a really odd interpretation. Vaccines are for the good of everyone, both the individual and society....the NHS is a huge organisation...what do you want? How could they behave in order for you to feel that they are sufficiently worried about your baby?

i’ve done my own research on whether i should be vaccinating my newborn

PhD, MSc, postdoc research in immunology - or sitting on the sofa consulting Google? 🙄

Myocarditis that has left a lot of scarring. It was severe (critical care initially). It was reported as a vaccine side effect by the hospital and accepted as a Covid vaccine injury. I was not the only one in the hospital with this.

I had all the traditional vaccines with no issues and DC have these.

Lots of people also unable to accept some people are injured by vaccines. I'm sure the person injured by the.covid vaccine would've got COVID and died. Right? Right? Keep telling yourself that, as per even the NHS and any medical body who push for vaccinations, there are many side effects and injuries that can be had from vaccines and no, not every single one of those people would have died from the illness the vaccine that damaged them was supposed to protect them from. But please enjoy your ignorance. Anybody so blind to these points is as bad as the person they're berating on the opposite side of the fence who is blindly against.

You're brave posting this on here!

People can never discuss this topic on here without being rude and aggressive.

I remember reading a thread where someone had posted asking if it was worth getting her child privately vaccinated against chicken pox and people were still rude to her even though she was very clearly not anti-vax.

It is done because it saves lives, not to tick a box.

Those diseases are killers....but people forget that because we don't have first hand experience of diphtheria and measles anymore .....because the vaccines have worked.

Facts. Let’s just look at the 6 in 1 jab.

• whooping cough - pertussis

1 in 100 babies who catch pertussis die.
https://www.cdc.gov/pertussis/fast-facts.html#:~:text=Whooping%20cough%20can%20cause%20serious,treatment%20in%20the%20hospital%20die.

“Before a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, the average number of suspected cases in England and Wales was over 100,000 each year, and in some years over 2000 people died from pertussis. By 1972, when over 80% of children were vaccinated, this had fallen to 2069 suspected cases and 2 deaths”
https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/pertussis-whooping-cough#:~:text=Before%20a%20vaccine%20was%20introduced,suspected%20cases%20and%202%20deaths.

• Polio

“Before a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, epidemics would result in up to 7760 cases of paralytic polio in the UK each year, with up to 750deaths. Once a vaccine was routinely available, cases of polio rapidly fell to very low levels.”
https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/polio#:~:text=Before%20a%20vaccine%20was%20introduced,fell%20to%20very%20low%20levels.

• diptheria

“In Britain during the 1930s, before the introduction of immunisation, an average of 58,000 cases were seen each year, with 2,800 deaths.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545997/

• hib

“Even with medical treatment, about 1 in 20 children who develop Hib meningitis die. Before a vaccine was introduced, it is estimated that there were up to 1500 cases of Hib disease every year in the UK, leading to about 900 cases of meningitis and 60 deaths each year.” https://vaccineknowledge.ox.ac.uk/hib-disease#:~:text=Even%20with%20medical%20treatment%2C%20about,and%2060%20deaths%20each%20year.

• tetanus

death rate 1-2 in 10. In the pre-vaccine era, there were about 470 tetanus-associated deathsand 1,800 diphtheria-associated deaths in the U.S. each year. Tetanus- and diphtheria-related deaths have declined by more than 99% since vaccines became available to prevent them.

Childhood illnesses aren't benign maladies that we should all just catch in early years and therefore remove the risk. They can kill, and used to kill and/or severely impair many more people pre-nationalised vaccine programs.

People here are not more qualified though than your gp

1. I'm a 6 ft supermodel and earn 60,000 a day

2. I'm a man called Andrew and spend my time crime fighting in tights

3. I'm Sarah, I'm 57 and I live in Hull

Which of these are true if any??? You don't know, this place is no more reliable than Google

" i’ve done my own research on whether i should be vaccinating my newborn but it’s hard to find unbiased facts."

Scientists have dedicated careers to this, and looked at the unbiased facts. The unbiased facts are that vaccines save lives. And save children and adults from life limiting ongoing issues from illnesses. I think it's child neglect to refuse vaccines unless there is a medical reason. And a superiority complex that 'my own research' on google is somehow better than scientific methods is not a medical reason.

I don’t like the constant reminders, the phone calls and the pressure to vaccinate

They are having to do this because of people like you who think they know better and get their information from internet rabbit holes.

Grow up.

The diseases the vaccines protect against could cause a range of outcomes in your child such as blindness, deafness, paralysis, brains damage and death. If you don’t want this to happen to your child then you should vaccinate them.

I have a close friend who is a pediatrician.

They do not tell me heart breaking stories about children who die, or are permanently disabled due to having had routine vaccinations.

They do cry on my shoulder over the children they could not save, or barely saved who will suffer throughout their lives due to complications from illnesses that could have been prevented had the child been vaccinated.

That was enough for me.

I completely understand it’s a really bad way of looking at it.

A couple of people on this post have commented saying it’s a money making exercise etc and unfortunately those comments (wrongly so) have made me questions things.