MMR or seperate jabs which ones would you give ?

[robinredbreast]

hi yes dd has had all the vaccinations so far and is now 6 months, i know they do not have the MMR until 12 months ish?
so im doing reserch now trying to decide whever its better to get the single vaccinations
i don't mind paying

After lots of thought and reading DS1 and DS2 both had the single vaccines. It cost a fortune though and if I was in the position where I couldn't afford the singles I would almost certainly have gone for the MMR because I was of the opinion that even the combined vaccination was better than no vaccination at all. But that was my choice after seeing the 6 month old daughter of a work colleague be seriously ill from measles.

both mine have had/will have the single measles vaccine and the mumps and rubella vacs aqt some point in the future when we can afford them.

for me it was a risk not worth taking. also the single vaccines provide a stronger immunity than the mmr - because the body is only fighting off one virus at a time the immunity is stronger, which is why there is no need for booster vaccines if they have the single mumps and rubella jabs. my dd is due to have her measles jab this year and will cost us in the region of £140. well worth the money for the peace of mind it gives imo. hth x

MMR, with all 3 - no problems.

Personally i felt 13 months was far too young for these jabs - given either way.

Mine have had theirs recently - at 3 and 4. No after effects and full support of my doctor.

well i won't forget to give dd any of her vaccinations that is for sure, and im happy to pay

just feel a bit worried as to the single jabs,are they safe with less research children having them etc

UC - I was thinking of doing this for DD (waiting, that is, giving MMR at 3 or 4). Not worried about a young 'un catching mumps or rubella. Measles I accept is a real risk.

But is there any good reason for my feeling it's safer at an older age? What's the stats on MMR given later? Any greater/lesser link with complications?

RRB - I agonised about the decision to give DS the MMR. He finally had it, and our reasons were as follows:

• Some of the single jabs are manufactured in countries that I personally wouldn't trust (no logical basis for this, just gut reaction).

• The single jabs are not tested or licensed in this country (granted this is for political reasons, but I wasn't comfortable with DS having something that hadn't been OK'd in this country).

• There are no private clinics anywhere close to us that offer single jabs and we couldn't afford to travel and pay what they were charging.

So a mixture of reasons really. In the end we were extremely concerned to ensure that DS got the measles vaccine and the MMR was the quickest way for that to happen. So he had it. And I'm happy to say that 3 months on there have been no ill effects and I've put it to the back of my mind. HTH.

If a child is vaccine damaged post ? early age - it won't be called childhood autism as that by definition has age limits (so speech loss is occuring at age 2/3 not 5 iyswim). So a child who ended up severely 'autistic' following a jab at say 5 would be diagnosed with childhood disintegrative disorder NOT autism, so there won't be stats. However I have taken the view that it's harder to knock a child off course with increasing age. My younger 2 will eventually get a measles jab if they don't catch it. My aunt cares for someone who reacted very badly to the measles jab given at a later age, but she's diagnosed with severe learning difficulties or something. She's recognised vaccine damaged.

There are papers that show that measles vaccine given at 15 months is slightly more effective than measles vaccine given at 12 months. Not a major difference though.

MMR here. I don't like the thought of them not being protected for the time you have to leave in between the single jabs.

DD1 is 4 and has had no effects.

DD1 is 6mths and will be getting the MMR without a doubt.

I don't understand how people can be worried about the MMR but not worried about their child not being immunised and catching one of the illnesses

I would rather get the MMR than delay being immunised and get single jabs when I could afford them

Now that they have removed thiomersal from the primary jabs I'd go with MMR although I'd wait till after 15 months old at the earliest ... I waited till DD was 18 months and she still developed pneumonia 10 days later .. DS had sepvax because he had primaries with thiomersal (and family history)

I don;'t not worry about the diseases (my Mum is deaf in one ear from measles). But in our reality I worry far more about severe autism. There aren't that many things worse (although obviously there are a few - and I;m talking severe/profound here). DS1 attends a school where children have been damaged by various hideous diseases (meningitis the main one- vile disease) as well as vaccines, as well as shit birth injuries etc etc. I probably have more idea of what these things (i.e. diseases) can do to you than most. There is no black and white answer, and as a doctor once said to me, no guarantees. We just looked at our family history and went from there. Our family history isn't anyone else's, our risk factors aren't shared by everyone else, so I wouldn't expect others to make the same decision as us.

Coco I didnt find any data about it, it was a combination of my mummy intuition thinking their body's have changed so much from 13 months until 3/4that I felt they are more able to cope with it. And also I work with children with autism and 90% are boys so that was a main concern, which my doctor couldnt argue with. I had my duaughters "done" at 13 months - in the 90's- but felt more worry this time, having boys.

As it happens one ds started having seizures the week he probably should have been mmr'd at 13 months, and if he had of had it done i would of 100% have blamed the mmr for it, rather than the fact that his seizures were the beginning of epilepsy for which we have yet to find the reason.

I would have been more relaxed to have girls as well. Ds1's entire class (of severely autistic children) has been boys for the last 2 years (and its mixed age groups so they swap children iyswim).

Although I do know quite a few severely autistic girls as well. My friend was told by her GP that her dd couldn't be autistic as she was a girl and I had to correct a locum GP who told me that girls didn't get autism

yurt and uc and everyone

do you think that the singles provide justas good cover?

MMR all the way.
By the way, why shouldn`t GPs be paid for giving it? They are self employed contractors running a business, have to pay their nurses, pay overhead and most of not all of the capital costs for their premises. the vaccine itself may be provided free by the NHS but it still has to be checked, stored correctly, paperwork done etc etc.

I have to say (and this is obviously just my personal experience), but of all the people I know who went for sepvax only one has ever finished the course. And she only has 1 child. Certainly a few years ago there was a shortage of the mumps vaccine which delayed the vax by over a year for some of my friends. By the time the second and thrid children came along it really was too much of a faff to get along for all of the separate jabs, especially if the child had to be cold/bug free etc. Making all of the early vaccinations is pretty easy (and if you don't you get chased). But later on it is more tricky, especially if you go back to work.

My dd had the mmr and booster and is fine.

However 2 babies born into different sides of my family in the last 6 months have had measles. One of them was so ill was taken into hospital. the decline in the mmr take up does have an affect - talking to other parents at school lots of them who went for the single vacination did not go back for the boosters as they forgot or it was too difficult to organise.

If your doctor won't discuss it with you, then you should change to a octor that will!
My 4 eldest children have had the MMR with no ill effcts ( dd2 is only just 9 months)
The week before ds1 was due to have his injection was when the whole thing first blew up ( about 10 years ago now) And at the time I cancelled the appointment, BUT I made an appointment with my doctor for the same day and went in with a completely open mind, and asked him to explain to me what his choice would be (MMR or single vaccines) and why.
He said that he would go for the MMR, because that even if you have single vaccines, the antibodies remain in the childs system for about a year, so unless the seperate injections are further apart than this, then in effect you are mixing them anyway, and if you do wait longer than this then you are risking your child catching one of the diseases anyway.
After a lot of thought I went ahead. I think I did the best thing for my children, but as a parent we all have to make difficult, sometimes life changing decisions, and what is best for one is not always best for another family. Good Luck with your decision, and don't be afraid to discuss it with your doctor. He/she should not see you as a nuisance, bur someone who cares for their childs health.

I had DS MMRed at 15 months. He was absolutely fine. No idea why I'm getting cold feet about DD.

We went private for DS's primaries, but that was because of thiomersal. Since they've removed that, we gave DD the normal course.

DD has also had BCG, Hep B and Hep A, and will be getting yellow fever at a year. But we live somewhere dodgy!

DD1 and DD2, now 12 and 10 both had the MMR without any problems, and I would probably have given MMR to DS 16 months, had (new) MIL not been very against it. She used to be a pharmacist and had read quite a lot about it and SIL had gone the single route for her 2 children a few years ago. Anyway after she expressed her concerns I looked into it a bit more, and decided that we would go for the singles jab for DS. There is some evidence (somewhere!) that side effects are more prevalent in boys and children of older mothers - both of which applied this time round.

As we could afford it, it made sense for us. DS had the measles jab first - and I have to say he was quite ill a week after the jab, with a high temperature and very grumpy - which passed after 2 days, which was very consistent with a minor reaction to the immunisation. So I was very glad I'd not subjected him to Rubella and Mumps simultaneously.

He will have Rubella next and then Mumps as they recommend ideally 6 months gap between the measles and mumps immunisations. Rubella doesn't really affect boys although he will still have it done, as it's important for herd immunity. Mumps is also not a major problem until boys reach puberty - so being not immunised for a few months isn't a major problem. Measles is the most important one to get done early.

All immunisations have side effects, and I think the government takes an overall look at the risk, and decides that MMR for the population as a whole is less risky than the single immunisations, as if single immunisations were standard then many people simply wouldn't bother with rubella and mumps, and the overall immunity would be reduced. However as an individual who will definitely immunise DS against all 3, I think either choice is valid, and personally I feel more comfortable with single immunisations for DS.

robinredbreast. There isn't that much data (especially because MMR is given so early now which has an effect) but the evidence is that the single jabs are slightly more effective than the MMR.

Mumps is often ins short supply although I have no idea why they introduced mumps vaccine anyway. I can see the logic behind the introduction of every vaccination except mumps.

i had the all together one when i was a child so did my four sisters,
dd (18mo) had all in one for above reason!
my uncles lo's have both had the seperate jabs! for what reasons i dont know i do know the only place local to them that did them was 2hr drive away!

on the point about leaving them unprotected between singles - for me the way round that is start with the measles, which is the most likely of the three to have severe complications.

FWIW, our paed was happy for us not to give MMR booster but suggested we have ds1's immunity checked via blood test. He's protected against rubellav and measles but the mu,ps component apparently didn't work properly.