why do parents refuse their baby / childs vaccines?

[bethjoanne]

in the uk we are so lucky to have an nhs---- doctors ,nurses ,treatments and vaccines we should be so grateful.in third world countries babies /children die of terrible diseases and also our relatives eg great great great grandmas would have done anything to have their children vaccinated IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE DREAM TO HAVE AN NHS AND VACCINES, instead they had to witness their child suffer i dread to think what they went through.
what country you are born in is luck of the drawer.
we should be grateful for medical care and vaccines available to us and have our baby/ child vaccinated.
i cannot believe some parents are so selfish and ruthless putting others at risk and starting an epidemic what happened in history and other third world countries .when the nhs is here to help and protect us now.x
ps think about babies 0 day old to 15 months who are too young to be covered /vaccinated.10 babies have died recently from whooping cough.also there has been 2 well known footballers had meningitis recently so there is reported cases,surely this needs nipping in the bud .
why are parents still refusing to vaccinate?

because we live in a country where we have a choice.

There are many threads on MN that will answer this question for you...I think the latest is today so probably on the front page still.

Why don't you directly ask the poster this is clearly aimed at?

its a choice and if it was made mandatory then you would have parents tearing their hair out and filing claims when a lot of babies had side effects and in some cases worse. doctor actually tried to bully me into it. I stood my ground. she said it was safe, my specialist told me NO not at that point. Now I knew it wasnt a good idea so why did it take one doctor and 3 nurses to ask others to leave and have me with PND in a small room alone trying to talk down to me and insist they were right? Thank god for choice.

and btw can you prove the footballers were unvaccinated or that they even had they type of menningitis that has a vaccine as there are different strains.

because the vaccination programme that is available now is not right for every child and not everyone believes the vaccinations in particular the mmr is as safe as they make it out to be

It sounds like you're saying the parents who make the choice not to vaccinate are doing it against their better judgement and regardless of the consequences for their child and wider society.

That's not right, they must be doing what they think is the best for their child.

Like everyone else.

I've given mine whatever was going, but if I genuinely thought it would harm them in any way, I wouldn't give a fuck whether someone thought me selfish or ruthless (??).

Choosing not to vaccinate doesn't mean they're not grateful for the NHS and what it does.

thats right, the meningitis C vaccine doesn't prevent you from having other strains of this disease.
My children had all their vaccines but the pre school booster for the mmr made my daughter vomit so violently that she couldnt eat properly for at least two weeks afterwards as her throat was so sore from vomiting bile. So my son didn't have his.
At least we have a choice, and its not an easy one, the last thing we need is slagging from other parents who have made different choices.
My daughter and I also chose for her not to have the HPV vaccine at school. So what?
Mind your own business.

Did you copy and paste your post from the other thread? Or am I having deja vu?

Thread about a thread.

Yawn.

I don't see that parents are 'selfish and ruthless, putting others at risk' if they decide not to have their child vaccinated against certain diseases. Whooping cough, which you cite, is given in a vaccination at 6 weeks. If you are concerned about your baby getting it before 6 wk old don't take them out in public before then. Stating 2 footballers have recently had meningitis is a ludicrous argument. Meningitis comes in many different forms and there is no vaccination against most of them. I actually have concerns about the amount of vaccinations given to small babies, TBH. And the fact that they are loaded with an awful lot of different diseases at once. Would you want to be fighting diptheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and Hib at the same time? This is not something that is ever likely to occur in nature, and yet we give injections of 5 vaccines at once. I did actually have my DCs vaccinated and am grateful for the choice - but it doesn't mean I automatically assume that anyone who is wary about having it done is wrong.

You know what..... I was arguing vehemently for vaccines on another thread as I really do believe in them. However the patents who chose not to vaccinate their kids do so for many reasons, some misguided, others very sensible, but all the time they are doing what they believe to be right for their child. No parent would willingly put their child at risk and neither are these parents. We may not agree with them but it's their choice.

I think the poster who decided not to get the mmr vaccine got a lot of stick, unfair, aggressive comments were made.
I'm in two minds about the mmr jab as I've read different reports on studies carried out and the evidence doesn't make me feel better about going ahead.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Sowornout made some good points.

ZigZag think I was one of the ones arguing on the MMR thread! (Though don't think i was too abusive just a bit blunt!) kinda why I trying to rectify that here.... The poor OP and some others on that thread caught me on a bad day.

soworn, you can't tell if you have whooping cough for the vast majority of the time you are infectious. You'd have to avoid anyone with mild cold symptoms, and you're just as likely to bump into them in a hospital as anywhere else.

DD2 was infectious for well over a week before even becoming ill enough to be concerned it wasn't just a mild cold. During those days, she was out with her friends, went to the cinema, went out to eat, was on a sleepover. She had very mild cold symptoms, for the majority of those times, and it was hayfever season.

I feel terrible that she could have infected someone vulnerable, but I genuinely had no idea she was ill. It wasn't until she developed an awful cough that I realised she was ill at all, until then she seemed to have either a mild cold or hayfever. She's 15, I can't keep her at home for that.

I don't know if you can still do this in UK ZigZagWanderer but I too felt really wary about MMR, particularly links to autism. I've taught a LOT of kids with autism over the years, mostly boys. So when it came to my (now) 7 yo DS I was very unhappy. Also, to me MMR are all pretty mild, ordinary childhood diseases. Yes, there are (rare) occasional complications but I'm in my 40s and as a kid most of us had measles or mumps at one time, without any problems. Weighed up against the possibility of my child becoming autistic there was no competition. (I know 3 people who are ABSOLUTELY convinced this is what happened to their son and severely regret MMR jab). Anyway - I spoke to GP who said that it was possible to have single injections privately. He told me to have single measles, single rubella and also that mumps injection only lasted 10 years and the only danger to boys was if they got mumps in puberty could occasional make them sterile. His advice was to have single mumps injection at age 9. So that's what I did.

Also, to me MMR are all pretty mild

Rubella - seriously, mild? Not to a pregnant woman.
Mumps - sterility, deafness, etc. I am partially deaf in one ear from mumps I caught a few years ago.
Measles - not a mild disease. Not at all. Not even close.

I wish my gp was as supportive about giving separate jabs and that they took it seriously that my son struggled with combination jabs. IF i have another child I would opt for single jabs

Thank you everyone for all your replies..
hi sossiges, i just wondered just out of interest all the different reasons.
sorry if i made you yawn! x

Mmm, I'd do single jabs now too, I didn't have that option when mine were vaccinated. I'd still choose the combination jabs over no jabs though, if I had no choice.

I don't remember the names of the posters but she was called a fucking idiot which was harsh!
Being blunt and abusive are different things.

I think many people arguing against this just regurgitate what they have heard in the media or what nurses and Drs say without looking into it properly themselves.

What I've read about the MMR jab doesn't reassure me personally.
Just because the majority do something doesn't always make it the right thing.

I did vaccinate dd but I do think it is the parents right to choose

I think there were plenty of reasons given on the other thread (and indeed on the many squillions of similar threads on MN).
Reading the same thing over and over again does tend to make yawn. I guess I just have a low boredom threshold .

Sowornout so you didn't vaccinate at 1 and then 5?
I'd like to get individual ones but have no money.

Make me yawn, bugger