How did you decide?

[el332]

Can anyone point me in the direction of some good resources to help make an informed decision about whether to vaccinate your child?

Interested to hear from parents who haven't, and how they made that decision....

Because they are idiots and want to put their own child and people around them in harm!

Simple. Do I want to keep my children (& others) safe from terrible illnesses? If yes, vaccinate. If no, don't. Hope that helps.

Same. I asked myself do I want my child to get a horrible illness? The answer was no I don't, so I will vaccinate.

And again. It's the right thing to do. No decision to make as far as I'm concerned. Why risk your child health???

Measles alone is horrific and I do wonder if part of the reason that people are pondering vaccinations more lately is that they have never experienced it, either personally, or in their circles.
30 years ago, it was common and affected many children who still live with the consequences today (or are dead).

Look up measles, outcomes, long term effects and the newest outbreaks. Then look up whooping cough in small babies, rubella, mumps, etc.
Look at the photos of it, read the personal accounts.

Because I didn’t want my baby to die needlessly.
Because I wanted to help those in society who can’t be immunised due to having immunosuppressant illnessness by contributing to herd immunity
Because I have seen first hand the effects of these Illnesses on children and their families (measles, rubella, polio, mumps, are NOT harmless childhood illnesses. Surely everyone knows that meningitis isn’t)
Because although there is a risk of innoculation injury, it’s very small compared to the risk of the illnesses

I never considered it to be a decision. Its the right thing to do to keep your child as safe as possible.

Really no decision to make. The MMR - Autism link has been thoroughly discredited. Illnesses like measles that had been almost stamped out by vaccines are on the rise again due to people not vaccinating and could kill your child. There is no way I would not have protected him from those.

I delayed some, because their MMR fell due just as Wakefield was published in The Lancet. That was a time of some uncertainly.

But they had all their other vax on schedule, and MMR once it was clear that the weight of evidence was that Wakefield was wrong. I know (anecdotally) quite a lot of DC in that cohort remain without MMR, and I'm glad my DC are not in that group.

Because I’d rather my child didn’t suffer from an unnecessary disease, and potentially be disabled from it or die.

Because I have faith in science.

If you’re worried about vaccinations why aren’t you worried about the drugs you’re child would be given to fight off the infections they may get because they’re not vaccinated?

You don’t need to vaccinate against everything, OP. Just the diseases that you don’t want your child to die from. Oh wait...

I used my brain

As many many others have said, there was no question for me, ds has had and will have all his vaccinations on schedule. Vaccines protect not only him, but the likes of my mum who has a compromised immune system due to chronic illness. If he doesn't catch measles or whooping cough or whatever, then he's less likely to kill my mum with it too. So there is absolutely no doubt for me.

How did you make the decision to use an infant car seat? How did you make the decision to put warm clothes on your baby when it was cold? How did you make the decision to feed your baby when she or he was hungry, or clean her or him when needed?

You vaccinate your children if you are a responsible and loving parent who wants to protect their health and wellbeing.

That's all.

And unlike all those other things good parents do, vaccination has the added benefit of protecting other people's babies too.

So you do it.

I decided not to vaccinate.....

Said no sane parent any where. I wouldn't be so selfish as to put my child and others at risk of a horrible disease or death from said horrible disease.

People who say "vaccinations are just a corporate ploy to make money" are freaking idiots.

Just walk round an old church yard and see the graves of tiny children.

My one friend's son couldn't have MMR due to egg allergy but she is massively relieved that he can have them now (not sure if it's the allergy or vaccine that's changed).

In my opinion the only reason not to vaccinate is medical, so allergy or illness meaning the vaccination would be more harmful than the deadly diseases they prevent.

When DD was born, there was an outbreak of whooping cough. A baby in our local area died 😔 I hadn’t been offered the jab when pregnant as the outbreak hasn’t happened. It started the week DD was born. She was too little to have the vaccination. I remember feeding her in the middle of the night and watching the bbc news which was saying about the outbreak and feeling absolutely terrified she would catch whooping cough. I appreciate I was sleep deprived and hormonal but that feeling of utter helplessness was awful. Needless to say she had the jab as soon as she was allowed !

Can you imagine the utter devastation of being a parent in the early part of the twentieth century and losing child after child to measles and TB and polio etc. My granny was one of 11 and only 5 made it past their 5th birthday. Imagine explaining to her mother (my great granny) that you didn’t want your child vaccinated.
This sort of stuff really worries me. About to have a new born and will have to do school run and obviously be out and about doing child centured stuff with DD1 and I am already worrying that my tiny baby is going to be around unvaccinated children without my knowledge. I agree with previous pp who said that pepole don’t experience these illnesses anymore so in their mind they are all like a small dose of chicken pox 🙁

Why on earth are you actively seeking out reasons not to vaccinate?! In my mind people who choose not to vaccinate already have strong (and misguided) reasons not too - so if you don’t already have these views why are you trying to acquire them??

I considered the sources. Who tells you to vaccinate? Doctors, peer reviewed published medical research, NHS, WHO and so on. Who tells you not to vaccinate? Random people on facebook and youtube, many of them also trying to sell you some quack medicine.

It's not something I particularly thought about. It's just something I did. Why would I need to think about keeping my own kids safe?

Good resources... try your health visitor or the NHS website for a start

My grandmother had diphtheria.My father in law,friend's Mum,and a girl I was at school with had polio with paralysed limbs as a result.A little boy at our church had mumps meningitis and was left profoundly deaf.My Dad had mumps as an adult and was pretty ill,I remember regular doctors visits.DSis and I had whooping cough,mildly because we had been vaccinated but it still wasn't much fun,neither was measles.
Why would I want any of that for my child?
And it helps protect society,those people,children,babies who can't be vaccinated or are immunocompromised or suppressed.

Can't really add anything to the first 8 or so responses.
Not, scratch that, to all the responses.

I had both an emotional and rational response to wanting to keep my babies as safe and well as I could.

Odd, I know.