Breast fed babies and this vaccine …

[Sunshine4534]

does anyone have any info about whether rotavirus vaccine is just as needed for breast fed babies ? I’ve read about the risk of intestinal blockage from the vaccine, it’s a very small risk , but it’s made me feel a bit nervous I guess and I also have read about breast feeding providing antibodies against rotavirus… p.s I’m definitely not anti jabs, my other child has had them all and was fine 🙏🏼 but I want to make an informed decision

I have never heard about the rotovirus only being for breastfed babies. In my NCT group we had 3 formula fed babies and 4 breastfeed and we all had the rotovirus as per the schedule

Breastfeeding provides antibodies at the time but once breastfeeding stops so to does the protection. The vaccine, however, gets the child's immune system to provide their own antibodies. Also, the protection from maternal antibodies is only partial. So is the protection from the vaccine of course, but two sources of partial protection are better than one.

My breastfed babies had it, anyway.

Sorry to clarify I am asking whether breast fed babies need it , if they get anti bodies from milk.

The thing with antibodies in breastmilk when you get the antibodies is key. This is why women have to get certain vaccines at certain points in pregnancy most notably the whopping virus which gives enough immunity by transfer of antibodies through pregnancy and lasts through the first months of life before they can get their own whopping cough vaccine

I don't think there is any vaccine which is only for formula or breastfeed. I have found this link which might be useful, it's not specific rotovirus
https://www.vaccinestoday.eu/faq/babies-receive-antibodies-with-breast-milk-why-do-they-need-vaccines-if-they-already-get-this-natural-protection/

Yes, it's advised for all babies regardless of feeding method. The risks of the vaccine are much lower than the risks of complication from the virus, and it's fairly likely to get the virus (previously it's been called stomach flu or winter vomiting virus).

Please please if you have any worries at all discuss them with your GP, health visitor or practice nurse. They are not to be scared of. I became very anxious about vaccines when my eldest was young and all the "info" I found about vaccines seemed to suggest that I would not be allowed to discuss it with my doctor/health visitor, so I didn't. But actually they would much rather have an open and honest conversation and help you put the different risks in perspective.

I actually preferred this one as it is not a needle. I felt awful taking them for needles.

Perhaps think of the breast milk antibodies as more of a boost while they are tiny and forming their immune system. They still need to have their own protection for when they are weaned. The reason for giving it is that if tiny babies get the virus they can be very very poorly with it. That would be much worse than the possible reaction from the vaccine, in my opinion - but of course you must decide what's right for your own family.

Anecdotal I know but my exclusively breast fed baby got rota virus at 9 months of age when it was not part of the vaccine schedule and he nearly died of it - I am not exaggerating. Vaccines are not added to the schedule without robust evidence regarding safety and efficacy.

Both mine have been/are breastfed.
DD had the rotavirus vaccine but DS didn't.
DS only didn't have it because he was born out of the county I lived in and there was a failure in getting the right documents across so the nurse didn't want to risk giving him the vaccine as it could make him unwell.
He's 11 months old now and seems to be fine but I would have preferred that he had it just for peace of mind. The nurse didn't seem concerned that she wasn't giving it to him though

@kernowpicklepie thank you for sharing , was rotavirus vaccine singled out as one that might make him particularly ill and he was given the rest ? Or wasn’t given all of them ?

@catsnore thank you, please feel free to challenge or correct me, but if they’re breast fed for up until around 2 years old, then don’t the antibodies from breast milk support them for around the same amount of time that the rotavirus vax does before it wears off ?

@CoalCraft thank you, please feel free to challenge or correct me, but if they’re breast fed for up until around 2 years old, then don’t the antibodies from breast milk support them for around the same amount of time that the rotavirus vax does before it wears off ? And from my research I can see there’s a risk of hospitalisation for babies if they catch rotavirus, but , in a developed country where treatment can be provided to treat something like d&v, I’m wondering it’s worth risking the side effects for a baby who being breast fed for a long time ? Thank you for taking the time to answer though and I appreciate all the reassuring perspectives to help me decide

Yes it definitely is needed for bf babies

Just like to add that my 1st breastfed baby and no rotavirus vaccine - caught rotavirus at about a year old from nursery. I remember her constantly vomiting, unable to keep down water, going floppy, urgent trip to A and E (I ran in sobbing), having to syringe water into her mouth, more vomiting. It was horrendous. 2nd breast fed baby had the vaccine - I’ve never had to take him to A and E with any illness (although he didn’t start nursery til age 3).

I found this which suggests that breastfeeding doesn't actually protect them for the whole 2 years. It only really protects them for the first year, even if breastfeeding continues, so they are vulnerable during the second year. This is a study with large numbers which means it's a reliable source. The antibodies from the vaccine protect for several years.

https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article-abstract/92/5/680/58468/Breast-Feeding-and-the-Risk-of-Life-Threatening?redirectedFrom=fulltext

However as you said there is a small intusseption risk associated with the vaccine and this is reduced greatly if the first vaccine is given before 15 weeks, so they don't recommend getting vaccinated at all if your baby is older, meaning there is no point in delaying it until after the first birthday.

I know that it is more dangerous in poorer countries where people don't have access to healthcare, but diahroea is still dangerous to babies in the UK.

Sorry for the medical word misspellings, can't easily look them up from here.

@BertieBotts thank you for taking the time to find this ! It’s the kind of evidence I want, but do wonder how valid it is if it’s 30 years old! V Interesting though that it suggest breast feeding simply delays/postpones risks . I guess before the vaccine that’s still a great thing as baby would be a bit older and stronger by the time the risks increased ! You said the case study had a large amount of numbers , do you know how many ? All I can see is “one hundred two” which I’m not sure is 102 children ?

Breastfeeding antibodies aren’t a magic forcefield. Babies can sick and if they catch a virus like rotavirus they get very sick indeed. I don’t understand why you’d take the risk versus the very small risk of side effects from the vaccine.

@Sunshine4534 it was just rotavirus vaccine that wasn't given. Because it's a live vaccine the nurse didn't want to risk giving it to him as it could have given him it.
It was only because there was no record of something (I can't even remember what she said now) in his red book so she didn't want to risk it.
I'd personally get the vaccines as it's better to have it than not I would say

My daughter had a reaction to her 4 month vaccine and ended up the paeds assessment unit.
When it came to her 1y jabs the GPs couldn't give her them and we had to have them as individual injections over 4 months - 1 injection wait 4 weeks then the next and the next rather than 4 together. I was ever so relieved when at 18 months she was fully vaccinated but she did catch chicken pox in the middle of that and on the day she had the MMR vaccine. I would have paid for her to have the chicken pox vaccine if we weren't in the long process of getting her as protected as her peers. My sister had a bad time with chicken pox when she got it as a teenager. I was so stressed about her getting ill. My uncle died the day after his 8th birthday due to complications from my gran contracting rubella in pregnancy.

Improved social situations don't necessarily mean childhood diseases are less. The polio epidemic in the 50s and 60s was due to improved sanitation. Polio used to be a disease that was mild and affected babies. Post war improvements meant babies didn't get polio but now young children did with devastating consequences as it was no longer a mild conditions.

It takes a long time for a epidemiological surveys to be completed and a lot of resources but broadly speaking a large well done study on a large data set should be as good or better than a more recent data set from a more recent time. if you look at Cited by for a paper you will see all the more recent papers that have quoted/referenced the paper and if there is a more recent paper. Often there are meta data analysis which are the gold standard for this sort of study. Rather than doing a study of their own they bring together all thr smaller studies and bring them together and see if their collective claims hold up.

Just something else to consider premature babies get vaccinated based on time alive in this world not age and not feeding method. The time breathing and not sharing antibodies through the placental is the key thing for them

It is closer to 40 years old, but in this case that doesn't make it irrelevant because disease vectors don't change if that makes sense? It was before there was a rotavirus vaccine available.

They looked at 102 infants who were ill and 2,587 healthy infants to compare. So overall nearly 3000 children which is a large sample size.

And yes exactly, it seems that the protective effect from breastfeeding does tend to postpone any potential infection until babies are older and more able to fight it off - so much better than nothing, but the vaccine does give better protection than this. Remember that if you're looking at how nature builds in its own protections, the only real way for this to actually affect things is natural selection, and unfortunately natural selection doesn't need ALL babies to survive, just more than whatever condition causes them to not survive. So while science isn't always better than nature, in some cases it is because the goal is different.

If you look at the whole world, which includes many developing countries, diarrhoea is one of the leading causes of child mortality. The biggest factor in this is access to clean water. This is much more important than either breastfeeding, healthcare or vaccination. So we are very lucky that we don't need to worry about this in our country. However there still remains a risk and vaccination is one way to reduce that risk. It seems like both breastfeeding and vaccination are helpful and they each help in different ways, so it is worth doing both, which is why it's recommended for all babies.

This is interesting/helpful in explaining how different interventions help reduce the risks of different gastro-enteric infections.

https://ourworldindata.org/childhood-diarrheal-diseases

And this explains why the vaccine was developed and how it helps manage risk even in developed countries with clean water and good sanitation - they say here that without routine vaccination, 95% of children have had at least one rotavirus infection by the age of 5 years old, and around a third of those children will develop a severe case of diahrroea. The UK started to vaccinate against Rotavirus in 2013. Bear in mind that the UK still doesn't vaccinate against chicken pox, suggesting to me that Rotavirus is considered more dangerous than chicken pox. The fact that they adopted this vaccine 5 years after the US, whereas the chicken pox vaccine has been standard in the US since 1995, makes me think it's probably a good idea to have it if you have the option. Remember as well that if your baby can be vaccinated, that helps ensure better protection (herd immunity) for other babies and other people who may not be able to be vaccinated themselves. The more babies who are vaccinated, the lower the case numbers in general across the whole population. This is likely because toddlers are spreading this kind of thing rampantly at nurseries, as it's contagious 2 days before vomiting starts. (Then it runs through families, workplaces etc.)

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/rota.pdf

'I'm not anti jabs but I just want to make an informed choice'. Sorry but it's exactly this kind of waffle that adds fuel to anti vax narratives. Get the jabs recommended and delete this post.

@SErunner so acknowledging, discussing and researching a real identified risk instead of blind acceptance makes me anti vax ? When my baby is having all other vaccines, okay then. Also recommendations and health advice does change over time , policy isn’t the gospel and as we don’t live under a dictatorship we can luckily still use our brains and make informed decisions for ourselves or our babies who rely on us to make decisions in their bests interests

Yes it's definitely needed. My baby was very poorly when born and intestines were affected by the life threatening condition she had - neonatologists still advised us to vaccinate against rotavirus despite the tiny risk of intussusception. She was absolutely fine after having it and it was peace of mind for us after everything she went through for first two months of her life.

Also she is EBF, sorry forgot to add that in.

I didn't say you were anti vax, I said your post on here is not helpful in the context of a lot of anti vax noise. Of course you can read about it and make your own decision. Just no need to open up conversations on social media. You have no idea about the background of people you're reaching out to, the conflicts of interests or agendas they might want to push, or just well intentioned poor advice. Just do your own research or ask a relevant healthcare professional if you're unsure.

I disagree, I think it is vital to have open conversations about vaccination fears and worries in public spaces. Otherwise it can feel like a taboo "not allowed to discuss" sort of topic and then the people who are willing to discuss it, tend to be misinformation pushing antivaxxers. By shutting down discussion in open space you push people in that direction which is not helpful.

There is really good robust evidence supporting all the recommended vaccines. We can share that, it stands up on its own, it's a good thing to have it all broken down and explained by multiple people in different ways.