Rotavirus vaccine

[Reddy01]

I know it's personal choice but I am wondering what everyone thinks on my dd getting the 2nd dose -

After her first dose she was admitted to hospital for lots of blood in her poo and lots of poo (20 dirty nappies in 12 hours). They suspected she might have developed intussusception but thankfully not. She was very ill and took her over a week to have better stools but thankfully the blood stopped after 24 hours.

Will she have a similar reaction to this 2nd dose? Is the 2nd dose needed if she is not going to nursery until much older? Can you delay the 2nd dose until she is older?

I am not an anti vax-er and I am sure these are well researched and necessary but I am worried that the same or worse will happen again.

Honestly as someone who recently was in hospital with their 10 month old with rotavirus, watching her scream with tummy pain, constant vomiting, hooked up to a drip for severe dehydration, 24 hours of poo sounds like the easiest trade in the world to me.

Had you declined the vaccine or your baby had both doses but still got rotavirus ?

My daughter had both doses and was still this unwell with it- I dread to think how bad it could have been if she hadn’t had them.

She also hadn’t started nursery when she caught it, so that didn’t play a factor

That’s terrible poor thing it sounds horrendous

It was absolutely awful, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to avoid having that again.

I would discuss with your GP and follow their advice – there are some situations where it is advised to delay or skip a vaccine, and a medical professional will be able to advise if your daughter's reaction means you should do anything different.

For what it's worth, we've generally found the first dose of a vaccine caused the worst reaction – but what you really need to know is about this specific reaction your daughter had.

We had a similar situation after the first dose and decided against the second. I think when I looked into it the level of protection from the first dose seemed ok…obviously reading the PP about how bad it can be I’m now a bit worried about that but it felt right at the time.

My daughter was ok with her first dose but my GP advised skipping her second-- she had a lot of allergies and her gut was quite delicate, my GP said she should have a good level of protection from the first dose, and said of all the vaccines that was the only one she didn't mind her missing. I am very pro vaccine generally. I would advise speaking to your GP.

Thank you all. GP etc just say it's up to us, they are no help whatsoever these days sadly.

@Mrsttcno1 how awful! We almost had her on a drip but thankfully I was able to feed her breast milk pretty much constantly. It is horrible to watch and not be able to help them! She had the same symptoms too and was so weak too, it was just the blood in the poo that they were most concerned with for long term prognosis. Her poos didn't stop for a long time but thankfully the blood did. Do you know how your little one got it? I must admit, it's a virus I've never heard of until having this one. You'd have thought 2 doses of the vaccine would have prevented her from getting it so young. 🤷‍♀️

@Janeykat can I ask what allergies or gut sensitivities your little one had? Dd has bad gut from formula and basically has to be breastfed for her to feel better but I don't know if that was a brand thing or a cows milk thing as she was better when we changed to goats milk but again GP didn't care.

@Reddy01 my daughter had cow milk protein intolerance (also reacted to soy and egg through breastmilk). The symptoms of this included blood in nappy and many dirty nappies a day, although she also had a rash. On weaning to solids we also figured out she has FPIEs, which are delayed vomiting allergies to certain foods. Thankfully she is growing out of some of her allergies now at 12 months. Good luck with your decision, it's hard to know what to do. I know some of my friends feel that the rv vaccine contributed/ made their babies with milk allergy worse-- I can't say that as her symptoms were already quite bad prior to receiving the first dose.

@Janeykat oh no your poor daughter! It must have been difficult going through all that trying to figure out what was causing it. I've never even heard of FPIES. It always shocks me how much you aren't told when becoming a parent and how you have to figure out so much yourself. I'm glad she is better with things now but it's tough to watch them be unwell so young.

My DD was similar. As she’s BF and gets great immunity from that anyway (the most serious rotavirus cases are usually in FF babies) I decided to skip the second dose. Rotavirus had already affected her bowels for weeks, I wasn’t going to worsen the situation.

Oh and I’m convinced rotavirus vax triggered my DD’s milk allergy long term.