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

Where to start with that study.

1: It found that some conditions (pertussis and chicken pox) were more likely to have been contracted by non-vaccinated children than vaccinated. Which the blog doesn't mention.

2: Non-vaccinated children are more likely to have parents who don't engage as fully with medical science. So little surprise that they have lower rates of diagnosis of ASD, ADHD, and minor chronic conditions.

3: This study wasn't done on their medical records, but on what their mothers reported. And according to the methodolgy they were recruited on the basis of it investigating the link between health and vaccination. So not only did parents self-select onto the study, which could skew results, especially as many anti-vaxxers are desperate for 'evidence', but they could have misinformed the researchers.

OP You should seriously reconsider giving your child will the 5 in 1 vaccination. Not protecting them from tetanus?? That would be seriously stupid.

would also point out that a thousand years of praying made no impact on the mortality rates of under 5s. it was vaccination that did that, in our life time. what a wonderful gift.

Yes GPs do get paid a portion of their income by vaccinating children - because the children will be healthier and cost the country less as a result.

My little one has had every vaccine that has been offered, including BCG due to the natural country of his father.
I find it scary in this day and age that people are even contemplating not vaccinating their children. The only way I can explain it is pure ignorance and selfishness on their behalf!
Please give your children a fighting chance at life and vaccinate them!!

Mumsey2017 when you say that you've done "quite a bit of research" you don't actually mean research do you? You have read a load of hysterical unscientific claptrap that uses emotionally triggering language and scare tactics to bang a particularly ridiculous drum.

did your research already encompass this summary which includes lots of actual scientific data on the benefits of vaccination?

Recent research has also shown that getting measles and recovering from it - rather than simply being vaccinated against it - is a significant factor in infection rates for a bunch of other illnesses because part of the function of the live measles virus actually kills off the body's existing T-cells (the defence that the body has built up against previously encountered diseases) leaving the body vulnerable to other infections for years after the case of measles.

Please just vaccinate.

If your child is ill , then take gps advice, if your child is allergic then take gp advice, if your child has a cold hold off for the short term.

In all other cases, do the socially responsible,sane,sensible thing and vaccinate.

God would want you to.

If you had been living in one of the affected countries during the Ebola outbreak, would you have vaccinated your child against it, once a vaccine became available? Think about your answer to that....

Tetanus kills, from a deep cut that gets soil in it. Polio maims for life. The others can kill or disable. With world travel, infected people could arrive on a plane from anywhere. I vaccinate my pets because I love them, so I vaccinate my children.

My daughter does not react well to vaccines, so we had them spread out. It was no problem with the surgery and we will do the same again when she is 3. Perhaps consider that instead?

Glad to see all the sensible answers on here about vaccination. I posted on a thread a couple of weeks ago about a mum with unvaccinated children at a playgroup. The anti-vaxxers were out in force then. It was worrying how many of them didn't realise that diseases were contagious before any symptoms show, so unvaccinated children could easily put newborns or immuno-compromised people at risk.

OP, not vaccinating your child is not a decision that affects only your family, but vulnerable people in your community. To answer one of the other questions, my DC attended two different nurseries and both wanted to see proof of vaccinations when we registered.

Stop praying and reading pseudo scientific claptrap, and learn instead from real figures about the dramatic decrease in child mortality in the last hundred Years due to vaccination against childhood Illnesses. Vaccinate.

Salty Why don't they visit Africa and repeat that study there?

I.e absolutely nothing else happens if you don't vaccinate

That's the most foolish and ignorant thing I've heard trotted out ever on MN. I've seen more people with Polio and it's lasting effects than you can imagine. I know those thin, wasted and twisted legs when I see them. I've listened to stories of People who have a photo hanging on the wall of a baby you will never meet (died of measles), You notice the little gravestone in the garden. I remember the pain and shock of having Mumps.

You are indeed privileged to be able to trot out your daft line because other sensible parents have vaccinated their children thus providing the safe enclave for your unvaccinated children, but your children left unvaccinated are a danger to everyone else.

Don't be arrogant, seize the opportunity living in the UK provides free of charge and vaccinate. There are Millions in Africa who will gladly walk miles in the hot baking sun to have what you are turning your nose up at.

Of course there's no large scale, methodologically sound studies that say anything negative about vaccinating. Big pharma wouldn't fund/publish them

So having skimmed the paper Salty can I ask if you have any links to papers that have not been funding by anti-vaccination groups?

And just for balance Testicles can I ask if you have any links to papers that have been not been funded by the vaccine manufacturers?

Not to mention the dramatic decrease in childhood disease happened when vaccination was first introduced at the same time as improved sanitation.

Who wants to bet the OP won't be back!

In case she is - Don't be ridiculous, vaccinate your child!

Oh my... when uneducated people have so much power over another human... It's scary. So irresponsible not to give a child, who cannot make their own decisions any vaccinations. What a shame.

If my parents had not vaccinated me I would be down the doctors so fast as soon as I were old enough.

The 'study' published by Salty has been retracted by both journals that published it and has been pretty effectively debunked.

For starters, the sample was self-selecting from a certain community (homeschoolers) and the data entirely based on self-reporting via online form with no control for parental bias. Participants were recruited by other participants promoting it to them. The study itself admits it isn't a representative sample. The peer reviewer was a chiropractor, and it was funded by an anti-vax group.

There are proper studies of the health of vaccinated vs unvaccinated children. Try this one.

The fact that the OP hadn't posted again and the wording of the post has got me suspicious, but just in case....

OP I was once in your shoes and contemplated not vaccinating. I was isolated, heavily pregnant and found some "research" about vaccine damage. I react strongly to vaccines; I did some travelling in my younger days and got many of the "in rare cases" side effects with each vaccine. What if this tiny person got sick or was irreversibly "damaged" because of something I put into their body? I knew that the autism/MMR stuff was nonsense, but there seemed to be lots of other research.

Then my elderly grandmother, out of the blue told me that when she was raising her children, she lived in constant fear of them contracting these things because of the damage they could cause. Her sister had lifelong health issues because she contracted polio as a child. I wondered what was worse, a few days of worry post vaccination or a lifetime of worry about what they might catch.

The anti-vax brigade are very very passionate about their beliefs. They have websites with clever names so you think youre reading about what is best for your child. When I questioned research, I got vile, bordering on abusive responses. Also, a lot of the websites etc are based in the US where they vaccinate against EVERYTHING (including D&V and chickenpox) so the information you get will not be based on UK vaccination schedules. And if you choose not to vaccinate your child, be prepared to have to justify your choices for a long, long time.

Here is a useful blog about why the study quoted unthread isn't good science : vaccinesworkblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/why-this-vaxed-v-unvaxed-study-is-not-valid/

I think the new U S heath secretary is aa anti vaccination proponant , so routine immunisation is under pressure in america, so be prepared for a fresh wave of antivac propaganda and anxiety to get into the media here. (The likes of the daily fail for example).
New mums particularly, are fresh meat for this kind of fearmongering , and all that can be done is to assure them that immunisation is one of the best scientific and social benefits of the last two hundred years, not some new cruel trick.

DD2 caught a very mild case of measles just before she was due her MMR. She was extremely ill. I couldn't put her down anywhere, or hand her over to anyone else because she felt so dreadful that anyone other than me just upset her more. I didn't sleep for days and neither did she. Recovery was not fast. It took her weeks to get back to normal. She was lucky and the measles did no damage, but the GP saw her every single day and the hospital was alerted in case this was the start of an epidemic. You do not want your child to catch even a mild dose of measles. Polio is a killer, even yet and if children don't die from it, they are left with serious, life-long problems.

Get your child vaccinated and stop being stupid.

What research have you done? Do you mean a couple hours looking on the internet? Do you really think that compares to peer reviewed scientific papers written by experts in their field?

Exactly right.

The public really need to be better educated about the scientific method. They also need critical thinking skills and the ability to identify what constitutes a high quality paper, how bias impacts publication and how to get reliable, high quality information from the internet.

So thank god for some of the posters on this thread: testicles, jeff, francis, jassy, somerville and others too numerous to mention!

The British Medical Journal called the autism/MMR link one of the biggest medical frauds of all time. Seriously when will this total rubbish of a causal link stop being thrown up?

rizlett How do you explain the spike in measles cases in areas where parents didn't give their children the MMR vaccine after the debunked theory about the link with autism was published? Good sanitation didn't seem to prevent people catching it then.