Did anyone vaccinate one child and not another?

[dinny]

Can't believe it's already time to start thinking about what to do for ds with regard to MMR. DD had single measles and single mumps (mainly because at this age - 16 months - she was at nursery and not breastfed). DS isn't at nursery, doesn't go to any creches and is breastfed (I've had mumps and measles as a child).

So, am thinking may not give him any jabs, at least for now. But it feels really unfair to DD. I'm more paranoid about him & jabs as he's a boy.

I'm saying nothing!

"The one thing that is touching about this post is just how much people care. How they beat themselves up over this decision, with the unifying goal of what is the best decision for MY child."

Where do responsibilities lie though? We believe our eldest son to be vaccine damaged. I am a stuck record, but he will never live independetly and will require 24 hours care for the rest of his life.

I have 2 other children- who presumably share a high risk of autism being triggered (that's fairly univerally agreed- being the sibling of an autistic child puts you at high risk- over 100 times more likely to be autistic that Joe public).

Sooo we believe ds1's autism was vaccine triggered (thimerosal grant you which has been removed- but there are other heavy metals/toxins in jabs). So where does our responsibility lie?

a) to "society"? OK so we jab our boys, and get 3 "vegetables" (paraphrasing- damn active vegetables but 3 boys who will never talk, be independent blah blah). BUT little Johnny down the road will be safe hoorah. BUT hang on what about the...

b)TAXPAYER- 3 autistic boys needing lifelong 24 hour care. BLOODY expensive and they get 3 parking you know so if I want to be reponsible to the taxpayer maybe I shouldn't vaccinate or

c) The BOYS. In which case we get to the sticky area. They;re high risk of autism, we can all agree with that, so do I tip the scales in favour of them being vegetabalised, or do we hold off a little bit- and maybe give them the ones they really need, when they really need them.

I'm well aware of the risk/benefit ratio. I'm also well aware of the consequences of vaccine damage, and able to imagine the consequences of something like meningitis C (and having a friend very close to me who lost a little boy to an infection- not one for which there is a jab- I'm well aware that itdoesn't just happen to other people).

Until you get to the day where you sit back and watch videos- ...."normal child" oh no there he;s gone, you've missed him, and that is YOUR child, then do us a favour and leave out the judgement, and the socially responsible arguments. I;d be a damn sight more socially minded if my son could access basic services. I've done my socially responsible bit- -more than most here- and I'm quite sure I deserve to burn 1000 times over in hell for what I have done to my son. Perhaps someone here would like to explain to him that mummy was being socially responsible.

free parking even, 3 times over no less.

blimey, this thread has kicked off a bit. but suppose I expected it

thing is, you can be told "it's for the common good" over and over but if it goes against your parental instinct then that's a different matter. Depends if you subscribe to utilitarianism, at the end of day.

Mears, that's crunch time, isn't it, when they're sick and you think, "Shit, I MUST vaccinate as can't handle him/her getting measles/mumps because I didn't." But because ds has had a few (hopefully minor) health problems I feel more concerned about vaccintating him at the moment. No 'reason' for that really, just a feeling.

jimjams .

Ds is most likely autistic, dd due her MMR this week. I am not having her vaccinated. My responsibility lies with MY child, noone elses.

oh, Jimjams, your post is so heart-breaking. I'm so sorry.

I would say go with your feeling Dinny. I don't regret doing that when they were babies.

Jimjams - you always put your argument so well. I totally agree with your sentiments.

I think gut feelings are important dinny. I often think about giving ds2 something and then I try and imagine getting him through the door of the surgery and watching the needle go in and I can't do it. Remember postponing is not the same as cancelling as well. You can change your mind whenever you want to.

Thank you dinny, mears and bunny- you've made me feel a lot better.

Your post really makes a point, you are and have every right to be very angry. I would patronise you to tell you that you are brave (perhaps braver than I could ever be) but I honestly admire you for speaking your mind.
It saddens me that you feel this burden of guilt over a link which to this day has not been scientifically proven.
It is not your fault! I really don't belive that you will burn in hell for doing what you truely belived to be best for your child at the time!
If the tables had turned and your boy was fine but developed mumps and entered a true vegitative state from encephlopathy. Your actions could have directly caused this consequence.
But I am sure you will find it very difficult to find a dr that will agree that this is fault.
I have made no judgments on you, except that you have been truely couragous. The fact the you cannot access basic services is another matter entirely.
I would hope that you accept my appologies if I have offended you, I have never ment to make a judgement on anybody, but standby my felling that it is only because we love our children so much that this decision and its consequences are so heart wrenching

That's what I keep thinking of - and at this moment in time would be more worried about the vaccination than the (small?!) risk of him getting measles. Also, find the fact I had measles at 10 months faintly reassuring (not sure why, prob wishful thinking).
Jimjams, you did your very best at the time with the knowledge you had. Hindsight is a wonderful and tragic thing, as you know. Thanks for posting. x

even tho jimjams has gone thru/is going thru so much, she still finds the time to advise and help others - her advice for my son has been invaluable and i suspect extremely important in his normal development. Thankyou Jimjams.
Dinny, i think you made up your mind before you got here really. its obviously your instinct to go with that. Hope all goes well.

"It saddens me that you feel this burden of guilt over a link which to this day has not been scientifically proven. "

ermmm - correct me if I'm wrong (I'm sure Jimjams will ) I think it HAS been proven......

And hey - lets not forget that the Thalidimde (sp) link with deformed babies wasn't 'scientifically' proven in the early days.......

Please excuse attrocious spelling, was working last night, will be going to bed at 9.30 when DH gets up./

im very sorry and sont wish this debate to carry on forever, but i had to respond to jimjams remark on watching videos of a normal child and then they are gone.
we know that one very well, amyjade has videos of her DD1 taken 2 weeks before she contracted pneumococcal meningitis, she passed away, there is a vaccine for it.

it is terrible izzybiz, truly terrible. but both arguments have flip sides, and neither arguement is a simple one.

izzybiz - there is a vaccine for it! my dd had it as it's a non live vaccine. it's just something that's not routinely given like flu vaccine and pneumovax.

argument i mean. spelling up the creek. I should add, that there are still strains of meningitis for which there is no vaccine, and from the way bacteria mutate to survive, there is a strong possibility there always will be. We have also frittered away our antibiotics, feeding them to cattle and giving them for viruses, which means bacteria are more resistant to antibiotics than ever before, so we have no 'cures' left for meningitis. that is why i wish more research was done on how some children are vulnerable to meningitis and some seem not to be, and how to prevent it.

KK - izzbiz said there was a vaccine for it.

sorry i read it wrong! i do appologise.

It's easy to call non-vaccinating parents "irresponsible" when your own child has never suffered any ill-effects from the vaccines that are available. Ds1 stopped breathing after being given the DTP. Just in case there was any doubt that the DTP itself was responsible (some doctors initially thought it might have been a reaction to the equipment or swabs etc used for administering it) he also stopped breathing after the 2nd dose. There was no way on this earth that I was about to risk brain damage or death with a 3rd dose just so that someone else's child could have a slightly reduced risk of catching those illnesses.

It's accepted that some children are vaccine-damaged yet there is very little help available either for the child or their families. As Jimjams points out, they are not even offered the most basic of services. For children like my ds1 there are no alternatives offered. It has been accepted that his reaction was triggered by the pertussis element of the DTP yet there is no longer any option for children like him to instead be offered just the DT components. That particular option was withdrawn in 2004. Ds1 was one of the very last children in the country to be offered it.

Thankfully ds2 had no problems whatsoever but if our 3rd child (due in a couple of months) has a similar reaction to ds1 then they will have to remain unvaccinated as no alternative solution is available..

of course i know that there are two sides , i was just responding to "when you sit back and watch videos" that is all amyjade and herDp have left of their child, all i have is photos to show my own DD who has no memory of her cousin, she was only 10 months when she died.
i just have very strong feelings about the importance of vaccinating, my DD has had the prevenar, and every single jab offered, she will have the pneumovax when shes two as well.
i dont wish to offend anyone, but i did find that comment cut to the bone, sorry.

I've never told anyone not to vaccinate izzybiz - if you read any post written by me you'll see that.

I'm not going to get into an argument about losing a child vs having a vaccine damaged child because actually one thing I found out when my friend lost her child was that the processes are very similar. She can't bear to watch baby videos of her son, nor can I. She will never have a conversation with her son, nor will I. She won't go on holiday with her son again, nor will I. Of course her loss is deeper, ands greater and she has to adjust to him not being there (where as I have to adjust to something very different rather than a total loss) but we found that because we find the same things painful we shared an understanding. Talking to her was similar to talking to someone with a severely disabled child, and I suspect for her talking to me was like talking to someone who had been bereaved. We understood where we were both coming from. She said as much.

My point about the videos was just that it's all very well to bring out the social responsibility line if you've never had any sort of loss yourself. The only argument I ever object to in vaccination debates is the one that I should get my children vaccinated to protect little Johnny down the road, when my children are far more likely to be damaged by the vaccination than the general publics. The social responsibilty argument currently only really holds for measles, mumps, rubella and pertussis anyway. The other jabs are more likely to give personal benefit than protect someone down the road.

Baka/Jimjams

And I just want to echo what Ruty has said about the amount of help, support, advice and comfort that Baka/Jimjams has given to mumsnetters over the years, not least to me when I was at a very low ebb. Thanks Jimjams.

I hope that last message wasn't harsh. I did say earlier I think, or did I just think it) that I am aware that by not vaccinating I am taking other risks.

Losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to anyone, but that doesn't mean that having a child who will never be able to talk, live independently is fine and dandy, or even an acceptable outcome.

My aim for ds2 and ds3 is to make decisions that will give them the best chance of reaching adulthood alive, healthy, and able to make choices themselves and do what they want with life, in other words live independently. I don't care what they do- I will just be grateful that they have made their own choice. For our family I think that is most likely to be achieved by postponing or not giving certain/all vaccinations. That doesn't mean that I think others should do the same, or that I think I should have any say in what anyone else does. I don't think other people's choices are anythying to do with me.

Jimjams

I think that only 9 months after losing Dd myself and the whole family including izzybiz have very raw feelings when it comes to any talk about vaccinations as one of the reasons Prevenar(Pneumococcal vaccine) still hasn't been introduced is because of Government fears that introducing a new vaccine will cause uproar among parents who are fearfull of the MMR.
So in our case anything that caused the delay of the introduction of Prevenar which would have saved my daughters life causes alot of frustration and anger.

I do know what you mean about you and your friend being able to share your grief together even and able to support each other.
When the CT scan results showed Dd had brain swelling causing massive brain damage we knew then that we had lost her and the child we knew had gone, so in a way the grieving process started then 5 days before she died.
But believe me not to be able to hold, smell and see your child at all is just like part of me has died and the thought of spending my life without her is unbearable.
But like i said the loss in a way is similar you have not lost your child like i have but your dreams and future for your child have been shattered and that i know hurts like hell !!