What happens if you refuse the final set of vaccines? (16 week ones)

[CathyandHeathcliff]

Actually I’m not going to refuse them all, just the men b. I’ve had the first lot of men b, but I’ve decided I don’t want the next lot.

Meningitis B vaccine does not ‘react’ with the other vaccines to cause a fever. All vaccines can cause a fever. Fever is part of the immune response. Men B vaccine is more likely to cause a fever than the other vaccines, hence the advice to give paediatric paracetamol.

Well what 'happens' is that your kid possibly dies of meningitis. For the want of a free immunisation.

A lot of very unkind responses here, but I'm guessing that your baby had a bad reaction to the first set of jags. You certainly weren't alone, the Men B one is pretty brutal with pretty high rates of serious adverse events compared to other vaccines (see the review below, stating rates of SEAs as 5.4/1000 for Bexsero compared with 1.2/1000 for vaccines generally).
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29371070

Unfortunately, the Men B vaccine has relatively low effectiveness (again compared to other vaccines on the schedule) and doesn't give adequate protection unless the full course is completed as Sidge says above, so if you want protection against the strains of Men B covered (with some likely cross protection to Men W and possible Men C strains), for at least a couple of years (until your baby is out of the highest risk zone anyway) you will probably need to finish the course.

You don't have to give it with the other jags though, and a sensible Immunisation nurse will be happy to spread out the vaccines. Thankfully, it's not a choice between sticking to the schedule and not giving them at all - you are perfectly within your rights to take another path that you feel is safer (reduced side effects while still giving protection against disease). This is pretty common practice now and loads of people do it, so I'm fairly confident you won't be the first. In fact, the Bexsero product insert itself indicates that giving it alone reduces the risk of side effects:

"Due to an increased risk of fever, tenderness at the injection site, change in eating habits and irritability when Bexsero was co-administered with the above vaccines, separate vaccinations can be considered when possible."

www.medicines.org.uk/emc/product/5168/smpc

Personally, I chose to spread out the jags to reduce the chance of side effects. The Men B one alone still caused high fever (even with paracetamol) but it wasn't scarily high like a lot of other parents I know. It's not "antivax" to ask perfectly legitimate questions about vaccines when you've had a bad experience, and trying to silence ANY critique in ANY circumstance is really not helpful.

Skip them all. And read -Vaccines- a reappraisal. Then make your decision.

We were in A&E recently with toddler DS2 who had a non-blanching rash, stubborn fever and couldn’t move his neck. You could see the relief of the staff when they learned he was young enough to have had the meningitis jabs.

When medical staff are that scared of an illness, you should do everything in your power to avoid it.

You do realise that the Menigitis jab doesn't protect against all strains right?! So it does NOT mean you are guaranteed never to get it.

My brother has it as a toddler btw...oh and he never had a rash.

By all means, protect yourself as much as you can, but I do wish people would stop believing that just because you've had a vaccination, it somehow gives you a god like protection against the disease in question.

@fadedred from the NHS website it says the vaccine when given alongside others. So dd will give it separately to reduce this risk.

She didn’t give rotavirus due to a number of reasons- a good friend with a phd in immunology chose not to give it either. Dd is breastfeeding and that lowers the risk of rotavirus anyway and she did not want to have the usual upset stomach side effect of that particular virus. Rotavirus is not particularly risky for Bf infants- just because a vaccine is available doesn’t mean it needs to be done in all cases.

Photo from nhs page

Your kid increases their chances of dying from a preventable disease?

@mooncuplanding who are you directing that odd sentence to?

Skip them all. And read -Vaccines- a reappraisal. Then make your decision.

If you skip them all, you’ve already made a decision, you numpty.