vaccination at 28wks?

[trian]

I've just seen a thread on Fertility Friends get closed down by moderators - they came on and posted the NHS's guidance on vaccinations - that's totally fair enough, but I can't see why they closed down the thread.....so I'll be interested to see if Mumsnet let this one stay up.
I'm due my 28wk whooping cough soon and I want to make an informed choice about it and I was wondering if any mumsnetters have any constructive opinions and/or useful links to scientific studies, useful parent testimony etc
Here's what the NHS say about the 28wk vaccine (I haven't read it all yet), but this bit about the study with the 20,000 women sounds good, but I'm open to considering other evidence.

sorry, here's the link:
www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/whooping-cough-vaccination-pregnant.aspx

I asked my mw today if I need it given that I had WC quite badly as a small child. She said that NHS recommendations are to have it so that the baby is protected from birth.

For me personally, if the NHS recommends it, I feel I have to trust them. They know more than I do.

I've read around the primary literature a fair bit (I'm a scientist.) to me, it's a no brainier. The vaccine is not live. It's been used on a huge cohort of women with no adverse events above background reported.
All drugs and vaccines are monitored even after going to market - all adverse event are reported and collated. So far with this one, nothing.

Whooping cough, on the other hand, is an absolute bastard. I nearly died of it as a baby. It's on the way back as well, as the antivaxx lobby get their claws into people. If you get it, you'll feel utterly shit. If your baby gets it, they have a very real risk of complications up to and including death. If you breastfeed you have SOME degree of antibody protection but let me make it very plain that this is NOT as much as a vaccine.

It is of course your choice. But I'd strongly urge anyone to get the vaccination. Talk to your GP if you have specific concerns, and please don't read 'parent testimonies' on the Internet. There's an awful lot of utter bollocks out there.

Had it in my last pregnancy, with no issues, DD is as bright as a button, and as healthy as a very determined ox!

"all adverse event are reported and collated" - I'm a bit confused, do you mean "all adverse events that are reported to healthcare professionals are reported to a central body and collated"? As I understand it, not all parents/carers report all adverse events....or do you mean that all serious adverse events that the state comes into contact with (eg death, hospitalisation) are reported and it's logged as to whether or not that child/baby had been vaccinated against xyz?

In terms of parent testimonies, it's the stories of severe, fast-acting REGRESSIVE (just want to stress that for any skim-readers) autism that I find hard (so far) to put down to natural causes. Generally tho, I want to focus my attention on the mainstream scientists that are debating this issue (this woman seems like one . Haven't had chance to watch this clip yet cos I don't have the mental energy at the mo.

No mainstream scientists are debating this issue.

All adverse events that are reported to healthcare professionals. Patients themselves can also report adverse events. If you go to your GP and complain of a bad headache after a jab, they'll report it. Anything you ingest or take can harm or kill you. For any drug, vaccine, biological etc there will always be a tiny minority who are uniquely allergic to it. There are unfortunate people out there who blister in response to water (!)

The fast acting regression is likely a red herring. Let's take Rett syndrome (something I know a fair bit about) as an example. Child appears to be normal until about 18 months. Getting speech, eye contact is good, engaging etc. then, often very sudden regression. Loss of speech, eye contact etc. they develop autistic behaviours, gut issues, fits. But Rett syndrome is not caused by vaccination, it's caused by a single gene mutation. Unfortunately, the regression often happens about the time of many childhood jabs and so parents, quite understandably, link the two erroneously. When you look much closer at Rett kids though, you see there are very subtle signs predating the obvious onset. The same seems to be true of the bulk of autism cases.

There seems to be a developmental stage where various processes connected to autism and certain neurodevelopmental syndromes kick in/become apparent. Unfortunately that coincides with the age we get a lot of our jabs at. It's pretty simple epidemiology to show that the two are not linked in a causative manner. It's very difficult indeed to explain why we know this to be true to a parent who has seen their normal seeming little girl develop this heartbreakingly awful syndrome.

Autism is very complicated. Most causes aren't as cut and dried as Rett syndrome. We are sure there's no single environmental trigger. We are sure it's a multi gene effect type of thing, but untangling that is mind bogglingly complex. Much, much more research is needed.

People want the answers to be simple. Smoking gives you cancer, uv light gives you melanoma, so why can't autism be linked to one thing we can campaign against? It's just not that simple. The diseases that have a single gene cause, or a simple environmental cause, are in the minority. For most, the cause is complex.

Also, rally tog is right. No mainstream scientists are debating this issue.

Andrew Wakefield has an awful lot to answer for. Tot up the number of excess deaths caused by reduced uptake of childhood vaccinations for starters.

I go with the fact that we are c lucky to have a wonderful healthcare system here and whilst I am intelligent and successful In my field I know little about the medical world and am not going to try and pretend I know more than the NHS who I am certain research and test everything v thoroughly before inflicting it on the general public.

I am 28 + 6 today. Had midwife app this afternoon. She recommended the Jab and I had it done there and then. On a lighter note if you do go ahead do it on a day when you don't fancy using that arm much for the rest of it...????

A man I know had an allergic reaction to the whooping cough vaccination aged 11 and now has CP, severe LD and epilepsy, he can't walk, talk or feed himself.

However I will still be having the vaccine and my children will be vaccinated, the risk of reaction like his are so rare it's a no brainer for me.

It was a no brainer for me too.

I have friends in Oz where there's been a couple of high profile cases of babies contracting it in the early days and died as a result. That's not meant to sound scare mongering - it was what first made me aware of it being an issue if you don't vaccinate in pregnancy (their HCPs hadn't offered it or it wasn't standard)

I'm US based so it may be different, but our vaccine was a 3 in 1 that covered tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria. I had no side effects except for a sore arm for about 5 days.

There arent any mainstream scientists debating this issue. It isnt an issue and it never was. Do the sensible thing and get the vaccine.

I had it. I was fine. DS was/is fine. His midwife called in with WC 6 hours after delivering him. I dread to think what could have happened had I not had the jab.

Op, I did a lot of research when faced with this question to satisfy myself that whatever risks I was taking (by either course of action) I could justify it to myself. I understand your desire to protect your baby. Fwiw I have always come out 'pro vaccine' whenever I have faced the decision, including the wc vaccine in pregnancy. What I did do however, was have it relatively late in pg (36 weeks). For me, that allowed the baby to be as developed and resilient as possible while still allowing enough time for the antibodies to develop (at least two weeks). I was taking a calculated risk that baby would not arrive so early they they did not get the benefit of the jab (I was lucky, they came at 40 weeks). For me this felt like the best compromise between any risk of the jab and the risk of not having it.

Ps when I talk about the risks of having the jab, I mean the small risks associated with any vaccine, not the risk of sudden recessive neurological conditions, which from my research, I don't believe are generally attributable to vaccines.

I live in Aus and there have been some high profile cases as mentioned upthread, one of which was in my city where a 4 week old boy died. My doc explained that they cannot vaccinate babies until 2 months and the disease is highly contagious so vaccinating the mother gives the baby the protection it needs in those early days. I dont know about UK but i receive SMS messages for all vaccines a couple of weeks after i receive them, asking if i experienced any side effects, Y or N. If you reply Y (apparently) they contact you for more info and all this data is used to monitor the vaccine.

A nephew-by-marriage of my mum's sister had a proved adverse reaction to the pertussis (WC) vaccine in the 70s (brain damage resulting in a payout, really sad). It's incredibly rare, but my mum struggled to vaccinate me against pertussis so she didn't and I can't really blame her for that given her perception of risk/benefit at the time, rather than the reality, but it did massively bite her on the arse when I caught whooping cough and it was literally only a well timed TV ad break that was the difference between child not breathing but resuscitable and child not breathing but dead. ]

Needless to say both my children have had the pertussis vaccine and my mum has never tried to influence me otherwise.

The vaccine in use in the 1970s is totally different to the acellular one used today.

If someone in your immediate family has reacted badly to a vaccination in the past, it is worth getting specific medical advice on your risk profile.

Being exposed to whooping cough in late pregnancy (by vaccination or in the wild) means your body produces antibodies which pass through the placenta, giving some temporary protection to your newborn.

The immunisation schedule was rolled out in UK after 14 babies, too young to be immunised, died in 2012, then 7 in 2013, and 3 in 2014.

I'm watching this with interest. I am trying to make the same choice at the moment. I had a bad reaction to the WC vaccine when I was a baby (1975). I think the reaction was high temp and vomiting. I was admitted to hospital but left a few days later with no lasting effects.
I really want to have the vaccine as it's a no brainer to protect my baby during those first few weeks but I am worried about how it might effect me/baby if I have some sort of allergy to it.
I've never been allergic to any other vaccines before and my daughter has had all her jabs. Am I worrying over nothing? I'm 33 weeks so need to decide asap!

It's a different form of vaccine, yummymango. I would speak to your doctor about your previous adverse reaction, but if you've never had another reaction it's very possible that the two were either not linked in anything other than time, or that it was that specific jab.

Talk to your doc :)

Put it this way, you have the actual reality of 24 dead babies in three years, vs a vague notion of unknown maybe possible undocumented adverse reactions.

I know which way Im going.

Thanks skiptonlass, I will do :)

Wholecell pertussis vaccine used in the 70s and early 80s is a completely different vaccine to that used today. Now acellular pertussis is used (combined with diphtheria, tetanus and inactivated polio for the preschool booster and pregnant women).

As Scaevola reports earlier, the vaccination programme introduced for pregnant women in 2012 has reduced the mortality rate for babies significantly and I believe (but don't have the stats to hand) that the few babies that sadly died in 2014 were born to unvaccinated mothers.

I've given this vaccine to hundreds of pregnant women and whilst anecdotal, I have yellow carded just a handful of reactions which were minor side effects such as localised reactions, low grade fever and headache.

Mmmm. I find it very interesting that you post a seemingly pro vaccination OP and rapidly move towards anti vaccine comments, ALMOST AS IF you are trying to goad and promote an anti vaccine agenda?

Maybe the thread on another forum you saw getting taken down, was stared by you using similar tactics? Just a thought.