Why so many anti-vaxxing mums

[FirstTimeMum881]

I have a 5 month old baby and I'm going back to work at 7.5 months and planning on pumping milk at work. I was looking for tips so I joined some Facebook groups on breastfeeding and pumping and also made an account on babycenter as it had a lot of threads on the subject. OH MY GOD. They may as well rename these groups "Batshit mums against vaccines" because the content is insane. My favourite is a mum of a preemie refusing donor milk from vaccinated mothers. Lots of others paranoid their babies have autism because they had their 8 week jabs and they noticed their babies love staring at the ceiling.

I'm aware most of these women are in the US but what the hell is going on??? It's like i stepped into a parallel universe.

@AppleDumplingWithCustard you beat me to it saying he's not technically wrong about the mustard gas.

That is probably because RSV rates have been fairly high over the last few years, so lots of mums will know someone whose baby was ill with RSV.

They changed their mind quickly with pregnant women and covid vaccine because they started to see an increasing number of women in hospital really ill with covid. They also knew from the vaccines already given to women who were pregnant but did not know it yet, that no issues were showing up.

It's quite scary that the Texas measles outbreak is bound to grow, and sadly at least some of those children will have serious long-term problems as a result. Even then I suspect these people will be studiously claiming it's all a made-up conspiracy.

I the blame rise of conspiracy theories (worse since covid) and a social contagion element. These people that were on the fringes before now have social media and have dedicated pages to it, and often go hand in hand with other stuff/special interests , so the exposure grows.

i feel so privileged my mother came from central America . When she was a child her cousin died from rabies, health care was not like what we have. We live in a country were we feel safe for ourselves and our children. My children can grow up strong and healthy thanks to vaccines and how good we have it in this country .People dont know how bad it could be

Pregnant women are also an easy group to scare. You get told to avoid so many things that it can be a scary time.

It’s not just the US though, I saw a thread last week on the Peanut app discussing vaccines and why they weren’t going to vaccinate their children or get any vaccines in pregnancy because ‘they’d done their own research’ which amounted to a woman on instagram and a self published book.

Genuinely terrifying.

I was pregnant too and got it post partum, that was slightly different to the well established childhood vaccines.

Yep, and while I’m not a fan of the American education system (or the UK one!) in quite a few states they actually require vaccination to be allowed to go to school.

Really sorry I reminded you about that, Op. It's shocking there are so many thoughtless idiots out there.

To those mentioning mustard gas, you don't have to tell me how hard chemo is, I'm WELL aware it's not made up of sunshine and rainbows but the fact is it's saved my life twice. I'm guessing you've been fortunate enough not to have had to sit through 10 hours of chemo per session praying you can see cancer off for a second time and be around for your family. No brainier. I'll take the side effects to live, thanks.

I genuinely hope that the anti vaxer doesn't get cancer because he'll treat it with i think he said, some hemp seeds...

There are lots of things people put little thought into: whether or not the bridge they are driving across will collapse, whether the surgeon will take out their appendix instead of their kidney, whether the plane they are flying in will crash, whether the judge presiding over their case knows the relevant legal precedents, etc, etc.

Because "putting thought into it" doesn't mean you have anywhere near the knowledge of the person who actually has the qualifications, training and experience, and it's highly arrogant to think that you might. Random googling of dodgy American websites watching YouTube certainly doesn't change this.

Yeah, utterly baffling.

See my post above. Such utter hubris.

Unfortunately, I know a lot of antivaxxers. In my experience, they think they are much more intelligent than they are. For example, they always talk about "big pharma" and "doing your research" but thinking critically is not their strong point. They tend to just believe the most dodgy looking website so long as it tallies with their beliefs and, as a PP noted, social media algorithms also just keep pushing anti-vax/conspiracy theorist content their way so they get stuck in a vacuum. They never look at anything critically or consider bias etc. They also won't have a rational conversation about it where you both get to put your viewpoint and questions across - they're very bullish and black and white thinkers as a general rule. It was especially alarming during covid!

I had a friend of friend who was staunch anti vax. She was convinced it would give her child autism and was extremely vocal about this. I don't know how she is still married because her DH very strongly disagreed with her. She was a very educated professional woman too and her sibling is a Dr, i can only imagine the tension it caused. Her DS1 had no vaccinations whatsoever but has profound autism and will always need care. I've often wondered what she thinks now, and if she is blaming medication or something else. I can only hope she had learned from her education on autism how ridiculous she was. I know the DH still but wouldn't dream of asking.

Please share this story as much as you can!

I haven't read the thread. I was fully trusting and pro vaccine until Covid. Several untruths were exposed. I am now hesitant. I'll get the vaccines but I'm wary about my kids getting them... I don't know where to find information I can trust.

I guess we'll all just have to wait for natural selection to do its job.

They'll probably be radical evangelists who don't believe in that either.

But it's just a story

What we need is transparency from the companies that make money from these. And when they won't be transparent and forthcoming with their data, my trust in them declines.

I think there has been research on this and anti vaxxers cluster at either end of the IQ curve

@TemporaryPosition I chose to vaccinate and I also read a lot. Children are still dying in 2025 from COMMON illnesses. That's all I need to vaccinate.

I don't think it a stretch to say there are far more children with some form of issue in mainstream education than there ever was. What the reason for this is, I'm not sure. It may be inclusivity legislation, changes in diet, parents health when conceiving etc.

But when we look back at our own education and there was perhaps one or two children who now would be considered autistic enough to be noticable to the untrained eye, it isn't unreasonable for todays parents to try and find a connection to the large increase.

I'm of the generation where measles, mumps and chicken pox was still just a childhood illness and every child got. I cannot recall any of the children I knew growing up suffering any after effects. This again may play into the anti vax thinking.

It might be an interesting experiment to allow anti vaxxers to self segregate, and see what happens. These would be self selecting groups so the only ethical way of conducting such research.

@TemporaryPosition that would be so interesting!