Did your child have a chicken pox vaccine

[Gettingtoomuchforme]

We’re booked for one tomorrow, ds is 3 but I don’t know if it’s necessary. I booked it because we have very vulnerable grandparents so wanted to be safe. I also thought it’s now on the vaccine list since Jan so thought we’d better get one if he’s eligible.

I then suddenly had a thought that they didn’t have chicken pox vaccines as routine before but why do they have them now.

Should we still go ahead with it?
I’m not anti vaccines btw he’s up to date, just more querying why they weren’t offered before but now they are.
thank you

@Gettingtoomuchforme if your child hasn't had his preschool boosters yet he will be offered MMRV at the age of 3 years 4 months, so you could wait until then.

I paid for it for dd, my auntie is blind in one eye from it so I wanted to make sure she was as protected as was possible.

My youngest had it last year. I paid for it, 2 doses. no side effects and no chicken pox. Most of her nursery group have had it since she was vaccinated. I didn’t want to wait for it to be added to the vaccine schedule.

My oldest got chicken pox, it was awful and that’s why I was happy to pay for the vaccine.

Nah, I didn’t feel any need. Both had mild cases of chicken pox.

No but I wish we had , my DS was so unwell with over 300 spots , it was awful . This was over 10 years ago and would not hesitate to vaccinate if given the opportunity

Thank you so much for your responses everyone. You are all very knowledgable and I admire how much I’ve learnt from a simple question.

As @Sidge mentioned it is part of the mmrv- I didn’t know this as I thought it was just one vaccine but they don’t do a single vaccine for chicken pox. So he’s just had his pre school boosters with the cp included. No tears either!

I had terrible chicken pox when I was little and I have several scars on my face from it too, so I wanted to avoid that for ds.
I asked the doctor about why it wasn’t included before and she said she didn’t know, they just update the list annually!

I also read an old mumsnet thread that if you had cp vaccine when little then you got shingles when older or became very ill with it and I’ll be honest it scared me! It put me off a little and I questioned myself. It doesn’t matter anyway as it’s included with the pre school vaccines.

Thanks everyone :)

Paid to have both my DDs vaccinated. I read such horror stories about CP and I had contracted CP as a teenager - I was awful poorly. It seemed sensible.