Experiences of parents with unvaccinated babies/ children

[Mumsey2017]

Hi there,

I'm a first time mum who lives in Kent and my DS will be coming up for 8 weeks. After quite a bit of research (and prayer might I add) my husband and I are leaning towards not giving our son any of his vaccinations at all or at least as early as 8 weeks.

I'm interested to specifically hear from parents who have older babies and children that are unvaccinated. What have your experiences been of not vaccinating your child? What has their general health been like? Have you have to isolate them at all/ be careful where you went? Do any attend nursery or school? Do nurserys even take unvaccinated children (excuse my ignorance lol)? Have they been more susceptible to illnesses or caught anything major? If you feel able to share, what were your reasons for not vaccinating?

If anyone is able to share their views on any or all of these questions - would be interested in hearing from you.

Many thanks

Herd immunity is a great thing. Vaccinate your child.

Please vaccinate your child.

What have you been praying for specifically ?

I hope all the praying helps your child when he catches measles, and I especially hope the praying helps the immune-compromised people that are exposed to him.
I also hope that the UK government starts prohibiting unvaccinated children from attending school, which is now the case in several countries around the world.

Vaccinate. Your. Child.

I'm sorry but not vaccinating your child is a ridiculous thing to do. Not only are you putting vulnerable children at risk who cannot have vaccinations for medical reasons, but your own child's life at risk. I cannot understand anyone who would have a baby and not want them protected from illnesses that can kill. Do some proper research, praying is not going to protect your baby from anything. I don't mean to be harsh, but this is something I am extremely passionate about.

I vaccinate and I've found that my child has not contracted measles, mumps, rubella, men b or men c
Which I think is amazing

I should have clarified ... Were your prayers for your child or others who are immunocomprised?

Having seen my parents' generation suffer a variety of life-long complications from (what are now) vaccine-preventable diseases, there was no way I was prepared to risk my children's long-term health, well-being and in fact, their lives, to something so easily and safely preventable. My parents are both extremely short sighted due to measles - both have spent tens of thousands of $$ on corrective lenses since childhood. A friend's mother walked with canes due to polio (which she was incredibly lucky to survive). Speaking to her now, she hates how little she could play with her girls and now her grandchildren.

The real evidence (not quackery) shows how safe and beneficial vaccines are. Please, please speak to your GP for some peer-reviewed, scientific evidence to counter the internet research you have done. For your child's sake.

Vaccinate your child please.
Vaccinations are very very very low risk (meaning the numbers of children who have complications are minuscule compared to the numbers of children who get vaccinated)
Measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough etc are very high risk (meaning there is a statistically significant chance your child will get it and also the effects could be devastating)
Vaccinating is the obvious thing to do for your own child and also for the sake of other children who cannot have vaccinations for health reasons or who have low immune systems regardless of vaccinations

As the fortunate parent of 3 robust and healthy children I consider it my moral duty to vaccinate my children. Immuno-compromised people rely on herd immunity.

Does anyone else smell journo?

I'd be interested in hearing more about your research? I have yet to find any credible scientific papers in support of not vaccinating.

I wondered that ifigoup.

If you are genuine, OP, run away from this thread very fast. You will receive nothing but vile hate-filled comments about how selfish you are. My children were born when the vaccination schedule was quite limited, so have not had many of the ones now included. They are strong healthy adults. I myself had only TB and polio/tetanus vaccines as a child. I am a strong healthy adult. But anecdotes are not data.

The recent (and only) study on vaccinated vs unvaccinated children showed that vaccinated children were (in general) far more healthy.

Please don't vaccinate your healthy child.

Here's an article about the study: info.cmsri.org/the-driven-researcher-blog/vaccinated-vs.-unvaccinated-guess-who-is-sicker

What are you looking for people to say?
Are you looking for somebody to say "I didn't Vax and my kids fine or I didn't Vax and my kid is paralysed with polio or died of diphtheria"

Why not go and find some 80 or 90 something and ask them about life before vaccines?

ifigoup yes, totally. Handy list of questions

I'm not someone who supports state intervention normally, but I think not vaccinating your child is akin to child abuse. Not vaccinating should result in an investigation and where no compelling medical reasons exists prosecution.

Here's the experience of one parent who didn't vaccinate - www.roalddahl.com/roald-dahl/timeline/1960s/november-1962

This is my experience.

I tried not to vaccinate my younger children, after my eldest had a bad reaction to his first. While I was told not to vaccinate my eldest again, I was told to vaccinate my younger children.

I didn't vaccinate them, but I kept getting hassled by the NHS to vaccinate them. And eventually when they were 3 my DH caved in and got them vaccinated.

Now they too have been diagnosed with diseases from the previous list, which I know started straight after their vaccinations. Every single day I regret getting them vaccinated - and there's nothing I can do. You can never undo getting vaccinated.

So, in answer to your question, the only negative problems I had with not vaccinating was a lot of pressure from the NHS. I could have ignored it, and should have ignored it, but I didn't.

(i.e absolutely nothing else happens if you don't vaccinate)

The problem with that study is that it is inevitably massively skewed by the fact that there are so many more vaccinated than unvaccinated children.

That is an extremely poor study salty - the sample size alone renders it useless.

Send it to Ben Goldacre for a critique.

Salty - can you please provide a link to an actual paper, rather than to a poorly written blog by an anti-vaccination group.