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

Unless you plan to raise your child in a sterile bubble their immune system will encounter lots of viruses, some of which can be mitigated by vaccines some can't yet. The childhood vaccines are well established and side effects short-lived. The diseases can be serious and potentially fatal or life changing.

If you decide not to vaccinate and your child gets one of those diseases, who will you take them to? Your GP/NHS or the person on the internet who wrote the anti-vax article?
Because if it's the GP/NHS who you would trust to treat the disease, trust them to know the best way to prevent it - the vaccinations they recommend.

Vaccines save lives.
Anyone who doesn't vaccinate shld hang their heads in shame. Its such a fucking privilege. How dare you even consider not.

What are you looking for? And why would you trust ransoms on here over the NHS?

This.

I do get it media was full of Anti MMR stuff when ours were due - and we tend to be pro vaccination but were worried. So we read round the subject in science journals and papers - it was a large study - I think Japan can't remember - it was clear best thing to do was have the MMR vaccinations so we did and it was done and dusted.

Though I do remember asking for second child at appointment - can't remember what but something to do with him specifically - and I'd already said he was having it and instead of answering my question Nurse launched in the NHS spiel - I did politely ask wtf and insist on answer about my child ( he had few medical issues ) and vaccine. The experience did make me feel bit like sausage in factory though rather than listen to.

No all vaccine are the same - childhood one are well established and researched given to millions of children worldwide - covid one were done bit quicker and had new techniques in them even then I think adverse reactions have still been rare - and with anything it's a risk benefit and these childhood illnesses are killers and can cause lasting profound problems even with survival.

I'm glad we have vaccines and never regretted my kids having them.

I think part of the problem with people understanding the need to vaccines these days, is the diseases they prevent against are held at bay because of vaccinations. So it almost doesn't seem necessary. Why should I vaccinate against polio when it no longer exists? It's just it these diseases do exist - the vaccines keep them at bay. If we all stopped vaccinating then they would come back (See measles).

I heard someone once explaining that they worked with African refugees, and these people were from places where these diseases wiped out whole villages. They couldn't believe when they got here that they could get their kids vaccinated for those same diseases so simply. None of those people would refuse and they saw first hand the devastation they cause.

The MMR vaccine is administered as two doses, each of 0.5ml. If you try and measure 0.5ml using an oral syringe (such as those that come with the calpol bottle) you will see what an incredibly tiny amount it is.

The part of the vaccine which acts to protect you is the weakened form of the disease - e.g microscopic particles. You don’t need a ‘larger dose’ of microscopic particles because you have a larger body.

Drugs like painkillers work in a completely different way to vaccines. You’re comparing apples to motorbikes and suggesting it’s sinister that they’re not used the same way.

The MMR is recommended by the WHO and all leading health authorities

Hi OP

I got pulled into a lot of antivax stuff with my first DC. It really alarmed/worried me because before having children, I'd never heard anything bad about vaccines ever, I had only heard of them as this wondrous lifesaving thing. So being suddenly told that they could harm my baby was very worrying and it seemed that the more I "looked into it" the more scary stuff I found. (and of course feeling a bit anxious about my child having to have injections which would hurt - it's totally normal and natural to feel worried about this by the way).

I will cut a long story short and say that after some initial alarm/anxiety and worry I started to notice indiscrepancies and odd things about what people were saying in terms of the dangers of vaccination.

One thing which made me stop and question them was when someone encouraged me to print out a letter for the nurse/GP to sign inviting them to take "full responsibility" for any side effects of the vaccine. I realised immediately that nobody would sign such a document and nor would I expect them to. That's when I realised that the antivaxxers were protraying this idea of a totally 100% risk free vaccine - which does not exist. Everything has a risk. Feeding your baby food has a risk of an allergic reaction. Having your child undergo surgery has a risk. Calpol has a risk. Teething gel has a risk. Avoiding vaccines carries a risk. In fact, vaccines are some of the healthcare with the highest hurdles to jump to prove that they have a low incidence of side effects, specifically because they are given to healthy people. When you have surgery then it's usually to correct some problem that is already happening so we accept some side effects and risk as a trade off for that. When we take medicine like antibiotics again this is to correct something so we accept some side effects as a trade off. Vaccinations are given to healthy people and the amount of side effect people will tolerate is extremely low. And contrary to what the antivaxxers say, the medical profession are fully aware of and talk about the potential side effects, they will even advise if there is anything you need to watch out for - but the serious side effects, if they happen, typically happen immediately which is why you wait a short time in the GP surgery after a vaccination (and you can ask to wait longer if you are feeling anxious). The antivax crowd made it sound like "big pharma" are forever pushing more and more vaccines and want to give them unnecessarily - but if that was true, why are the covid vaccines now being phased out? Why have they phased out TB, and smallpox? They are also planning to take Polio off the schedule (except that it has currently unfortunately been halted in the progress towards eradicating the disease). "They" don't want to give unnecessary vaccinations - only the ones for which there is a proven benefit where the benefits outweigh the risks. And believe me, the balance required for this is very high.

Another thing which made me stop and question is the idea that vaccines contain "dangerous" ingredients, like heavy metals. But I also knew that for example the advice during pregnancy is to eat no more than 4 cans of tuna per week because of the mercury. So if it is safe to eat up to 4 cans, then there is a safe level of mercury to consume and an unsafe level. I realised that vaccines must contain absolutely miniscule amounts, and I'm willing to make a trade off for tuna just because I like the taste of tuna. But a vaccine actually protects my child from a dangerous disease - the trade off is extremely clear. Why not, if concerned about heavy metals, look at prioritising reducing other, less useful sources in order to free up some capacity to cope with the very miniscule amounts in this very useful medical intervention.

The antivax crowd are quite insistent that vaccines "don't work" and it's all just a con or a money making scheme by big pharma. There were all kinds of graphs thrown around which seem to show that drops in various diseases were caused by something else and not the vaccine - but there is an extremely clear and very very common example that you can see - chicken pox! In the UK, not a standard vaccine given, and it goes around every single school and nursery several times a year and almost every child gets it at some point, to the point it's unusual if you haven't had it and people even want their child to yet it young to "get it over with". In other developed countries, children get it generally with the MMR and nobody gets chicken pox. Honestly. Nobody. I live in Germany now, I have been here for ten years and I have come across I think one case of chicken pox.

Lastly they spread a lot of info about how the diseases that vaccines protect against are not that harmful - unfortunately this is a lie. While it's true that if your child catches measles, the chances are that on balance they will likely be fine, the problem with measles is not so much the risk to your child personally, the problem is that measles is extremely contagious, so when it is allowed to run freely through populations, vast vast numbers of people catch it and that means that a great number of them, even though a small proportion (this can be the same thing - think about 1% of 3,000,000 people - that's 30,000 people) will suffer severe, permanent side effects or even die. The burden being greater on the portions of the population who are more vulnerable - the sick, the elderly, the very young, those with poor housing conditions, those with predisposed genetic tendencies etc.

Unfortunately there are some families who are living in limbo with rare, undiagnosable conditions (generally genetic or autoimmune disorders) that science can't provide a nice, easy answer to. Antivaxxers have a simple and convincing argument - which is exactly what should alert you to the fact that it's not the right one, as well as all the many, many, studies and huge amount of evidence showing that autism, for example, is not caused by vaccines (and some other things). This is the worst part IMO. Selling answers to distressed people is immoral and cruel. Using them as a vehicle to spread distrust is despicable.

At the time I decided to vaccinate my eldest (several months behind schedule) I was still not convinced I was doing the right thing, but I felt that the risk was probably about the same from vaccinating as it was if I just let him go about in the world considering that he would probably not encounter the dieases anyway. The reason that I made the decision to vaccinate was actually because I thought, on balance, if the two options were probably the same then it made sense to go the way most people go because that way doctors would be more familiar with the risks we were taking, whereas if he ever had got a vaccine-preventable disease, doctors today would be unfamiliar with those and that might pose a problem in itself. I was very anxious when the vaccines were being given and for a few months afterwards in case any side effects showed up (they didn't).

Fifteen years later I think I was wrong even then and I was taking a much, much, much smaller risk than I thought at the time in vaccinating him. I have vaccinated my younger children with no worries. The more I learn about where antivax rumours come from, the more I understand why they are so alarming and why they are also not to be trusted. I would recommend speaking to your doctor or nurse about your specific worries if you can, as they can often explain why the common antivax myths don't make sense to worry about.

There are quite a few people speaking out who have previously been hoodwinked by the antivax community now - I will send some links as I think it's interesting to hear what people say who used to be in this sphere and why they came out of it.

Vaccinate your child.

And I say that as one of the unlucky few to have life-changing side effects from a Covid jab.

My daughter caught measles not long after her first MMR vaccine. She was incredibly poorly. If she had not had the first vaccine and had no immunity at all then we could have lost her.
Vaccines save lives. I wouldn't think twice about vaccinating my newborn for this reason.

Hi OP - you sound like a really caring mum, kudos to you. My story is that DD1 was born during the Andrew Wakefield MMR scandal, and I was very conflicted. It no longer seemed so clear to me that vaccinating was the right thing to do. Luckily my health visitor at the time had been a neonatal nurse before becoming a HV, and told me that the cases of measles she had witnessed really worried her. This was for two reasons:

1. The severity of the cases she had seen
2. The fact that her own daughter was allergic to egg, and therefore unable to have the vaccine. She was fearful that her daughter would be further at risk due to the likelihood of lower vaccination rates at the time of the report.

She told me this in response to my question as to whether she recommended vaccination in a non-judgmental way, and did not pressure at all. I decided to go ahead with vaccination for my children.

I now work as a HCP supporting a school aged immunisation team. All the nurses on the team are very happy to talk things through with parents and young people, and explain about reasons for vaccination schedule, contra-indications etcetera with absolutely no pressure to accept vaccination. You might find that your local team could answer any questions you have.

My parents missed a lot of my childhood vaccinations (through circumstances not any ideology) and I was hit hard by many preventable ones and now have a lifelong autoimmune disease. I'm bringing my 12 month old for her 1 year vaccinations at the end of the month.

Just ask yourself, how would you feel if you chose not to vaccinate and your child caught one of those easily preventable diseases and died? How would that make you feel? Could you live with that? I know I couldn't.

Protect your baby, vaccines literally save lives OP. Getting hung up on "bullying" by the NHS chasing people to vaccinate is nothing in comparison to losing a child.

Also, some children can't get vaccinated for health reasons and the only way to protect those children is to increase herd immunity by vaccinating children that can be vaccinated.

It's not worth rolling the dice.

It sounds like you are concerned about what is in the vaccines and having them injected into your baby?

have you researched what is in the drugs used to treat children in ICU who have developed meningitis/measles… it might be worth looking at them and considering if you would be happy with these drugs being used to save your babies life.

Here's a fantastic cartoon that summarises the situation, OP.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/darryltoon/4618150003/

Nothing we do is without risk, but the risk of vaccinating is substantially less than the risk of not vaccinating.

Actually some children mainly babies have the TB vaccination due to where people in their family including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins come from and visit.

So my DD was vaccinated against TB because of cousins and people married into my family, while other people who I encouraged to get their babies vaccinated had parents, so the baby's grandparents, from abroad who visited.

It isn't along race lines it is where family members they could have contact with live.

I meant you're questioning thousands of experts and decades of research.

We're obviously not going to agree here, I'm glad other people have more patience than I do and wish you well.

I think you are right to say that the government and therefore the NHS as institutions don’t care about the individual health of your baby. But it is true that vaccinations save lives and should your baby contract a bad case of any of the vaccinated diseases, you will torture yourself that you could have prevented it.

I personally don’t see any downside to vaccinating

YANBU. Op. Its a good thing you question and research and find answers. The research thebookdragon links to is a good start imo.

I find it interesting how when we question the norm we get replies like on here. I too questioned. In my case it was due to not growing up in the UK and the EU country I grew up in did vaccination very differently. So I researches and read up and in the end my children got their vaccinations as they were in the UK. But that was after I had read info and felt I understood why thus was recommended.

YANBU for wanting to understand and no the 1st reply doesn't say it "all" as your question was about how to get information. Information is a good thing.

Again I would read the info thebookdragon linked. I'm pretty sure I know where you will end up going having read it. However, you will go there feeling you understand why.

But the man who started that now admits he was wrong so it's a different time with better information but more not vaccinating increasing the chances of children dying or being permanently affected.

I work in medicines licensing so let me reassure you that there is a comprehensive vetting process for every licensed medicine including vaccines. The National Health agency (independent from pharma companies) review a huge dossier of information including non-clinical (animal models), chemistry and manufacturing and clinical data. This used to be delivered in a truck in 10s of binders back when submission was a paper exercise. The Health agency takes months to review all this data and asks LOTS of questions. These are serious experts of 20+ years experience in their specific field.

I've worked in this area for 24 years and what I can say is I have full faith in the expertise of these guys and their commitment to public health. I vaccinate my kid and I think you should too.

For me it boils down to this…

Pre-vaccines my Great Grandmother had 15 children. She lost 6 of them to measles and 4 to TB. She wasn’t unusual.

I have 6 children. One ended up in hospital with a very high temperature after one vaccine. They got subsequent ones at the hospital just in case. My youngest child has health conditions that mean if she’d been born in my great grandmother’s time she’d have been dead within a few days of birth.

Vaccine injuries do very rarely happen, but vaccines are one of the prime reasons that a young child dying is now a rare event that stuns the whole community around them. In years gone by it was something that happened to most families.

Hi OP, I understand your concerns because of the toxic politics surrounding COVID, and how they were manipulatively rammed down our throats in the name of "Science" (with any dissenting views, immediately denigrated as being -at best - anti-scientific, and - at worst - homicidal). I think there is a lot to collectively learn and reflect on from that bonkers episode in our history.

However, I do think it's important to distinguish between the Covid vaccines and other vaccination programmes. The timelines for the development, field testing and roll out of the covid vaccines was absolutely unprecedented compared to usual practice, and the politics surrounding their introduction was unprecedented as well.

The regular childhood vaccines currently offered on the NHS have been around for decades and decades. They have been proven to be safe and effective in eradicating childhood diseases that cause death and life-changing disability to children around the world. There is no question that their benefits to infants overwhelmingly outweigh any tiny risks: the evidence on this is extensive and clear.

I did my PhD and postdoc in vaccine research. I fully vaccinate my children.

Do you have any particular question from your reading online around Covid?