Declining 8 week vaccinations for my baby - experiences?

[Plasticpineapple]

I don't want this to be about whether you should or shouldn't vaccinate your baby. I have chosen not to and I'm looking for experiences from others who have done the same. What did you say? What did the doctor say? Did you discuss vaccination once the child was older or flat out decline all vaccines?

Xpost with school :)

my cousin had mumps encephalitis when he was 10. now he is 40. he saw a neurosurgeon last week. he has epilepsy and psychosis - guess what caused it? the mumps 30 years ago.
no, he isnt dead, but its fucked up the rest of his life thats for sure

hey and guess how he caught mumps? some complete moron of a parent had a 'mumps party' by inviting over all her son's children when her son caught mumps. cos 'its better to catch it as a child'. course, as she was obviously a total dick, she didnt even tell the other parents her son had mumps.
stupidity - an age old problem

Patterofaminion, I can't believe you would put your child, and other people, at risk of diseases that are life-threatening or which could ruin his/her quality of life purely because your baby cried for three hours after the first round of jabs. That makes no sense at all.

No, they aren't saying that it is rare complication. They are saying that there is no firm evidence that sterility is caused by mumps.

As LaVolcan pointed out, given that it is now known that the mumps component of the vaccine isn't as effective as thought and that immunity from it wanes, it doesn't really make sense to be vaccinating toddlers so that they are left vulnerable when they are more at risk.

Luckystar - Do you vaccinate yourself and your children against flu every year?

Fuck you - "The only way to have firm evidence would be to test the sperm of everyone pre and post mumps. "

This is not the only way to find firm evidence. Do you think that 'testing everyone' is how they determine if there are any complications/risk of side effects from every disease/medication?

sanfairyanne - while I don't agree with not telling people that your child has mumps - it is better to have it as a child because there is a lower risk of complications. There was no mumps vaccine at that time so everyone's child was expected to catch it at some point.

Hi Whatwouldcaitlindo.

It was on the leaflet I was handed that if the infant cries for more than three hours, it should be considered a reaction.

I wasn't sure what to do. So I followed my instinct. I would not have deferred indefinitely. As you may have noticed from my post, he was given the vaccinations at around 8 months rather than two months.

I am not sure that is so odd of me. It seemed a compromise at the time but the surgery was happy with it.

does immunity to mumps wane?

certainly, it is the one you are most likely to need a second injection to get immunity. thats why there is a mmr 'booster' - it doesnt 'boost' it just catches those without immunity from the first injection

Bumbleymummy, you are all over every vaccination thread like a rash. I'm never really sure what your position is, as you never like to state it (presumably so that no one can ever actually call you out on anything). So I'm asking you - are you anti-vaccination? Why or why not?

It certainly comes across that you are.

Do you accept that vaccines have reduced rates of Polio, Diptheria, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Whooping Cough etc.?

With my crystal ball, I anticipate you will answer something along the lines of "Oh no, I'm not anti-vaccination, I'm just asking these important questions! Why are you against questioning??" But maybe I'm wrong!

I think most of your questions have been addressed extremely competently by other posters, multiple times. Why isn't the consensus of the scientific community enough to reassure you that vaccines have no link to autism, that vaccines are generally safe (although very few have bad reactions - but so few that the benefit far outweighs the risk) and that vaccines have been key in reducing deaths and disability in children and adults?

even in the 70s, not everyone was expected to catch mumps, measles or rubella as a child. they were not that common. certainly, it would be better to get them as a child than an adult, but just think, my cousin could just have had the mmr only a few years later, with no risk of encephalitis. now we have a vaccine, we are lucky our own children dont have to run the risk of permanent brain damage. whats not to like?

I also find it extremely interesting that if anyone dares question an individual parent's account of how vaccines caused their child's autism, the anti-vax crowd starts fulminating.

But apparently questioning medical professionals who have told someone's husband that his infertility was caused by mumps is totally different...

Bumbleymummy my point is that as a rare complication it is no doubt difficult to have a sufficient cohort of sufferers to firmly link mumps to complete infertility. However, as stated in the link I posted above, subfertility has been linked to mumps and I would not be willing to take a gamble on this on my son's behalf, especially as even subfertility, whilst not absolutley ruling out the chance of having biological children of ones own, undoubtedly makes it more difficult for those who suffer from it.

Bumblemummy....as a very pro-vac parent, yes, I do vaccinate myself and my DCs against flu every year.

It protects us, and the elderly relatives we see daily.

Who is fulminating Alyosha? Mumps has been linked to subfertility so it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility that in rare cases it could lead to infertility in some sufferers. I think it's a worthwhile thing to highlight.

Sorry Alyosha I misread your post. I see you were stating the same as myself and other posters!

No worries!

And without vaccinating, we would be exposing children to all of these childhood illnesses - whooping cough, measles, mumps, diptheria, meningitis etc etc.

Children aren't just at risk of getting one of these things but all of them. On top of any illnesses we can't vaccinate for (or it isn't effective to vaccinate against). I can;t believe people really want to go back to a time when children routinely had serious illnesses on several occasions in their childhood.

In reality most people who don;t vaccinate assume their child won't actually get measles, mumps diptheria etc and they're probably right because other people DO vaccinate their children

But we have never ever vaccinated against scarlet fever and the disease is much less prevalent now.

The seriousness varied - some children shook of the illnesses easily, others not. Bit like now really - some kids catch everything that's going, others never have a days sickness.

I have to say, I would consider myself a very stupid anti-vaccer if I ever told anyone my beliefs.

Not because they would think me stupid, but because I would want everyone else to vaccinate so that my child is protected by theirs.

Come on, if you're going to be selfish, might as well go the whole hog!

Well in countries that don't have Measles vaccination programmes, Measles hasn't got any weaker, and hundreds of thousands of children die. The course of Scarlet Fever is unique to Scarlet Fever. Some viruses get more dangerous and virulent over time, some weaker. Some can do both in different populations (i.e. HIV)!

fuckYou . You are right on the money with that!

CarlaVeloso Didn't most of us posting here have measles and mumps as children? I don't recall anyone dying

I had mumps when I was a child. I have very poor hearing as a result. It is fucking horrible to be in a social situation and not to be able to hear people talking to me because of background noise, or having to turn the telly up full to be able to hear programmes, or to constantly ask people to repeat themselves. And the complications from my mumps led to me having to have a series of ENT operations. So yeah, I didn't die, but I'm happy I can vaccinate my child against having to go through that shit.

What really pissed me off is when people say that the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio is nothing to do with vaccination, and it's just coincidence- but if you try to suggest that a child having symptoms in the same time frame as vaccination is conicidence they fall on you like a ton of bricks............

Right, Fuckyouchris Too many free riders in the system, then the system breaks down.

Ant-vaxxers don't really want their dc to go through all these childhood diseases do they? Not really.

I hope that polio does not return to Syria following the abandoment of polio vaccination owing to the war. Also very worrying for countries taking in unvaccinated Syrian children.