Apparently children who have had good nutrition would just 'shrug it off' if they contracted measles. Why don't they say that in the UK?

[bumbleymummy]

Article is here discussing the impact that poor nutrition has on children in developing countries.

Considering that the majority of children in the UK have no problem with good nutrition (fruit shoots and Greggs aside ) why aren't parents being reassured rather than terrified into having their children vaccinated with images of coffins plastered over the promotional material?

Why use it at all Grimma?
What other graphic (given that they wanted an 'infographic') would have conveyed the message that a possible consequence of measles is death?
Leaving this out would have been a distortion of the facts.

AS, there's mentioning that death could result from meningitis in a leaflet (and the chance of dying if you contract meningitis is much higher than measles) and then there's using a coffin to show a possible consequence. Should we just agree to put coffins on all the health information leaflets where death is a possible outcome then? Diabetes, asthma, what else?

If you're old enough to remember the 80s, then you'll remember the huge TV ad campaign for AIDS "don't die of ignorance" featuring gravestones. A far more high profile death-based campaign than one Welsh leaflet.

So I don't agree that shock tactics are only icw vaccinations.

Ok, I guess you'd all support a campaign to make some nice easy-to-understand infographic messages for all illnesses then with coffins being the graphic of choice for death. Fair enough. I still think there'd be a huge fuss if they were putting on BF leaflets though.

Well, maybe not Jake. S/he seemed pretty appalled at the idea. Although maybe s/he'd change her opinion now that it's a genuine leaflet rather than some kind of imaginary 'anti-vax' propaganda.

meningitis with a grave stone:
www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/immunization/infographic.htm

Teddy bear with missing bits:
theclotheslineie.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/meningitis-infographic-ire.jpg

The point of an information leaflet is to encourage the outcome best for public health. In the case of BF'ing, a better outcome is likely to arise from promoting the many positive benefits of it rather than focussing on the possible negatives. Its a very different case to vaccination where its really all about avoiding the possible negatives.

This thread is bizarre

You are comparing very different things as if they are similar
None if it makes sense.

Yes you should vaccinate, not getting measles is better than getting it.

No you shouldn't smoke if you want a healthy, active old age.

Yes breast feeding is a good thing to do, but so is giving your child formula milk rather than dilute condensed milk (which is among many things people used to give children)

All this is common sense

(But not in mumsnet land where nothing is straightforward)

1 in 10 is much bigger than 1 in 5-10,000 (based on outbreaks) or the 1 in 1,000 that is now frequently quoted.

Second one is a bit misleading saying 'prevented by vaccination' alongside Men B being the most common cause considering that we don't have a men b vax yet.

If you can give figures on deaths directly caused by not breastfeeding then maybe it would be worth discussing, but currently I don't think anything is proved in the slightest - even with SIDS there are many other potential factors, and only sleeping on the stomach has had cause for a public information campaign.

I'd have been appalled by 'images of coffins plastered over the promotional material' ...the gothic mental image produced by the OP was quite different to the reality of the leaflet.

Grimma, actually people are promoting the idea of stating the disadvantages/risks of FF rather than the positives of BF because BF is the biological norm and should be the default rather than FF.

You've missed the point ubik :)

OddSocks - you don't have to go down the SIDS route. Increased risk of gastrointestinal illness/diarrhoea/respiratory illnesses in children who are FF.

more US info

I need to go out shortly so I'm not ignoring people if I don't respond. Just rushing around a bit now!

Look at the actual UK figures from the mid-20th century onwards here. If you exclude wartime and the immediate post-war years then death rates range from 1 in every 813 cases of measles (in 1999) to 1 in every 13302 cases (in 1990).

actually people are promoting the idea of stating the disadvantages/risks of FF rather than the positives of BF

which people? (In the UK I mean - the problems of FF in the third world have a different balance of risks). Not sure the that would be a good idea in terms of the psychology of motivating women to BF.

I am frontline NHS - could you tell me what the point if thus thread is, exactly.

Tolliver, if you look at figures from other countries with large outbreaks (eg.Italy) the figures tend to be closer to the 1 in 5-10,000 mark on average. Unless they do take worst case scenario years to get the 1 in 1,000?

Grimma, apparently it is. There have been quite a few discussions about it over the years and I've already seen some 'risk of FF' promotional material but it may have been US. Will try to find it later when I get home.

Ubik - read the thread. I'm not directly comparing measles with smoking and bf - it's how awareness about them is promoted in different ways and why it is acceptable to use scare tactics in some instances but not others even though all are health related.

Well, in places where there are an estimated 250,000 deaths because babies are ff, then risk of death is used in health promotional material.

And that is what the link in OP is about- the terrible scourge of malnutrition. Not just hunger/starvation, but all the other deaths too it causes too.

Germany had a 1700 case outbreak in 2007 with 3 encephalites (one with permanent damage) and 2 deaths in toddlers (one with an immune defect). The US had a 55000 case outbreak in 1989-91 with 125 acute deaths (plus at least 11 cases of SSPE since).

There will be underreporting, but the number of 1 reported death in 1000 reported cases pans out pretty well.

I ate well as a child, as did my OH. I was ill for two weeks, have no recollection of the middle 4 days when my temp was so high I was not lucid, and OH lost most of his hearing. And neither of us had a sever enough case to need hospitalization.

This is why parents in developed countries are encouraged to vaccinate. You seem to be confusing measles with the common cold, they really are different.

DomesticCEO It is very sad! To see her after the first visit was like looking at a ghost! I was hoping she would change her mind. But no.