MMRV vaccine- thoughts?

[mnforadvice]

Our 16 week old has just had her final round of newborn jabs and the nurse told us from January 2026 babies attending their 1 year vaccinations will be offered a combined MMR and chickenpox vaccine. We are neither anti nor pro vaccines but interested in other peoples thoughts on it? The chicken pox vaccine wasn’t one we’d ever thought about giving our toddler and not sure if we would have her have it in the catch up program they will be running.

I’d take the MMR and chickenpox vaccine if offered, it wasn’t offered when my children got their MMRs and we had to get it privately.

I’m not really sure why you wouldn’t want the chicken pox vaccine. I paid £150 for it.

The combined vaccine is standard all over Europe and America, so it’s just becoming the same here.

Presumably your older child had MMR?

OFG. We see this all the time in Primary care
’I want my child to have the chickenpox vaccine’
’sorry not available on the NHS’ cue outrage

we are adding in the chickenpox vaccine to the MMR
’oh I’m not sure about that’

Vaccine damage does happen but it’s very rare. Hard to say quite how rare. If you’re worried you could always get the chickenpox vaccine privately.

Yes older child had MMR vaccine. I was just curious what others thought that was all. We never looked into privately giving toddler chickenpox vaccine as when we were growing up it was just part of growing up, chickenpox parties and all that! Neither of us have known anyone to be particularly ill from chickenpox either (before people jump down my throat that is only our experience, I’m not downplaying anyone that has really suffered)

Just take it, both vaccines have been given for a long time and are safe and very effective. Chicken pox can be a horrible disease - I paid for my DDs to have the vaccine privately

@1990sthanks for informing me it’s used abroad already, I didn’t know this nor have looked into it yet so that’s interesting

If it had been on offer I’d have taken it for DC (and saved the 4 days of hell where the only time they weren’t screaming was in a lukewarm oat water bath!)
Sounds like a good step forward

You have to have had chicken pox to get shingles. So it's not that so many kids have a bad reaction to chicken pox. It's more that they won't be able to get shingles in the future.

It's been standard in my home country for at least 15 years. No issues as far as I'm aware.

It’s the standard in the US, Australia, Canada and other countries.

The risk of not having your toddler involved in the catch up program is that she will be at higher risk of shingles if she catches wild chickenpox. There’s going to be less and less wild chickenpox circulating as your child enters middle age, due to the vaccination program about to start.

Circulating wild chickenpox helps most people avoid shingles in adulthood because you are exposed to it most years. Without it, older immune systems are much more likely to succumb to shingles.

My eldest had the MMRV in the US. Youngest were back in the UK had the separate vaccine privately. Why wouldn’t you? It’s been around for like 30 years in the US so it’s proven safe and effective. And best case scenario chickenpox is an uncomfortable week of itching, staying home off school/nursery/work only to repeat again ~2-3 weeks later when the other kid comes down with it. Worse case it can be pretty nasty.

People tend to think that chickenpox is a mild illness. Whilst this is true for most, some children are unlucky.

A decade after my child had CP we can still see over 100 scars. Understandably I’m a strong advocate for the CP vaccine.

I paid for my children to have CP jab privately at a cost of £160. Days of itching is the best case scenario if they get CP. Worse case is varicella pneumonia or severe secondary bacterial infection needing hospitalisation and death. Somewhere in between is most people's experience, not forgetting the weeks off work as each child in the household gets it in turn.
It was a complete no brainer for me and it's fantastic the NHS is now funding it, having reviewed all the evidence. The fact that the cash-strapped NHS is choosing to fund it tells us how essential it's being seen as.

I’ve seen complications from chicken pox land children in intensive care, so am delighted the vaccine is being added to the schedule.

My daughter developed chicken pox the same day she had the MMR vaccine and was fine. I'd imagine the chicken pox vaccine wouldn't be no worse than the virus itself. We were going to get her the chicken pox vaccine but at the time she was having to have vaccines individually in hospital due to a reaction to the menB at 16weeks

I have a 10week old and will have the MMRV if offered. My sister didn't get chicken pox until 16 and ended up very poorly with it

As always I would take it in a heartbeat. I was really poorly with chickenpox as a kid with lasting effects. I had my son vaccinated privately as soon as possible. Many other countries have vaccinated against chickenpox for some time.

I'm very much pro vaccine and did look at getting my son the chickenpox vaccine privately - I was told at the time that it was better to catch it naturally as there was no evidence it was long lasting (he's 2).

I've found out today it'll be offered to him as part of the preschool boosters at 3 years and 4 months (well over a year away).

I asked if he were already privately vaccinated or were to catch chickenpox in the meantime, there wouldn't be an option to just have the MMR without the V. I'm not sure how I feel about that, I'm also yet to see any data on children who have had either two or potentially three CP vaccines or be vaccinated after already having had CP.

For context the chickenpox vaccine is part of the schedule in Australia and has been for years. When we moved countries the children had to catch up particularly as daycare access requires vaccines to be up to date.

I had chickenpox as a toddler. Had to get my chickenpox antibody levels checked at work (NHS lab). They were very low 25 years after natural chickenpox, putting me at high risk of shingles. So I had a Varivax booster vaccine - that's the V (varicella) in MMRV, and I also got a MMR booster the same day.

I've also had my toddler privately vaccinated for chickenpox. The data from 25+ years of vaccination in the US is that the vaccine IS as good as natural immunity.

@TTCJJB It's probably worth saying the that Zostervax - the shingles vaccine - is the same vaccine as children get, but a higher dose for adults. So there are lots (hundreds of thousands) of adults out there who have had chickenpox and then had one or more chickenpox vaccines.

Incorrect. Shingles is not triggered by exposure to wild chickenpox. After chickenpox infection the virus remains dormant in the body. Shingles is a reactivation of the virus, but it is unclear what triggers it. A non-immune person cannot catch shingles from exposure to chickenpox, but they can catch chickenpox from exposure to shingles.

Shingles is generally much nastier and life-affecting than chickenpox. If the chickenpox vaccine gives lifelong immunity, it will eventually prevent shingles in older people as the vaccinated cohort ages.