But Socci, vaccination is altruistic as well as self-centred. It's about protecting all children, as well as our own. Including those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, such as heart disease.
I am worried about MMR, as you'll see from other threads if you search, and am looking into single jabs. But I'm trying to come up with a solution that is right for ds without exposing other children to unecessary risk.
Take rubella for an example. I have a ds so could take the selfish (ie decision made purely in relation to my own circumstances, ignoring effects on others) decision not to bother about rubella. But if ds caught rubella and gave it to a pregnant woman, I couldn't live with the guilt. Rubella kills unborn babies. It causes serious heart defects, deafness, congenital rubella syndrome... I could go on. Yes, you could argue, wrongly in my view, that it's the responsibility of other pregnant women to check their immunity. BUT 1/3 of pregnancies are unplanned ? that's a lot of women who have no reason to check their immunity. And there are a lot of women out there who have moved to this country from other places that may not vaccinate against rubella. And some people who have had the jab and think they are protected may not be ? vaccination isn't 100 per cent reliable for 100 per cent of people 100 per cent of the time.
Be honest, did you check your rubella status before you started TTC? Bet very few people do. We have to deal with the world we live in, where our decisions affect other people. And I do think we have a responsibility to other people's children as well as our own. I hope very much that if ds was ever in trouble, and I wasn't around, someone else would help him rather than think 'Oh, I won't get involved, he's not my child'.