Reasons to not vaccinate

[doidontix]

Sorry another vaccine thread ... Im now in my third trimester and up until now I've decided against the COVID vaccine, but everything I'm reading in the news is now scaring me a little. Before anyone jumps down my throat, I am leaning towards the vaccine. For months I have been reading up on it, all the trusted websites ie nhs, RCOG etc. So I'm aware of the risks of catching COVID in the third trimester which is why I'm leaning towards having it. My question is for those who are against it and what are your reasons for it? I've searched and searched for reasons not to have it, I've tried researching data on the negative effects of having the vaccine and I cannot find anything. All the threads I read on here from people that are against it all seems to be the same, they don't trust the government or they don't feel like it had been tested enough. Are they only reasons you are against it? Or do you have research based evidence as to why you are against it? If so Id genuinely like to read it as I've been unsuccessful in finding any. I'm not looking for debates, just genuinely interested as so why people are so against it.

Covid Vaccine www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/4238746-Covid-Vaccine

@SickOfCrap coming from the person who started this thread...

I'm allowed to ask those people who are against the vaccine, why they are so against it and the reasoning behind it. I wanted to know what research based evidence they have coming across (if any) that made them come to that decision. Purely out of curiosity, not because I take the advice of strangers and I find it interesting to see both sides of an argument. I personally think that's a lot more sensible that your post above ☺️

I didn't want to get it while pregnant because there wasn't enough research.

Ultimately I did though when restrictions were dropped and the threat of the virus was much more than the vaccine.

@Sheisfee but it’s not a large group of people who know what they’re talking about. It’s not an appropriate way to make medical decisions about yourself or your unborn child.

@Sheisfee mate, it’s a large demographic of pregnant women within a pandemic that have to make a decision about a vaccine. I don’t agree with people not getting the jab even though I’m aware it’s everyone’s individual choice but wanting to talk to like minded people AND medical staff is absolutely fine. You’re being a bit OTT.

[quote Derbee]@Sheisfee but it’s not a large group of people who know what they’re talking about. It’s not an appropriate way to make medical decisions about yourself or your unborn child.[/quote]
Where in this thread have I asked for medical advice regarding my myself or unborn child? I haven't. Honestly, you should really try reading the original post.

I know this isn't what you asked but my reason for getting it was because DC was really ill in hospital with viral sepsis when they were three weeks old and I read about the antibodies passing to the baby with the covid vaccine, so just want to minimise this baby getting anything nasty. But honestly, it's relatively new and as someone who knows fa about vaccines and how they work I can see why people are so apprehensive.

Thanks to all the helpful replies, especially those who provided me with links to read as this is exactly what I was after! Now going to sit down with a cuppa and have a read ☺️

To answer your original question OP (re: searching for legitimate reasons from legitimate sources why you shouldn’t have the vaccine) it’s the fact that there, so far, are no legitimate sources that have shown links to adverse pregnancy outcomes. But legitimate sources also acknowledge that they cannot know for sure what future repercussions might exist because the data does not exist. Currently they are working with ‘we have looked at the mechanisms of the vaccine and cannot see a reason why it would produce adverse outcomes further down the road’.

It’s a tough decision to make and is ultimately about balancing risk. Kudos to you for doing your research and making an informed decision. Not sure if this matters but I received Moderna at 21 and 26 weeks (after much research and discussion with medical professionals).

Are you likely to catch covid in the next few months?
Do you have school age children? Do you work outside the house? Does your partner?
Do you socialise indoors?
Unless you are able to 'shield', you and your baby would be safer, if you have the vaccine.

I fell pregnant September 2020 and I was offered the vaccine last year right at the beginning of the roll out as I’m frontline healthcare. At this time, pregnant woman were told not to have it at all. Then this changed to only high risk pregnant women. Then it changed to “ask your midwife/doctor”. Then it changed to “it’s your choice”. Now it’s “you must get it”.

I chose not to get it at all when pregnant (I’m far from anti-vax, I’ve had flu/whooping etc and now baby is here she has had her routine vaccines). I just didn’t feel comfortable with it being so new and the long term effects were unknown. Plus because we were told not to get it at the beginning, I struggled to change this mindset. Even if I were pregnant now, I would still wait til I had my baby.

@doidontix, this is a really interesting thread, thank you for asking!

I personally have decided not to have the vaccine while pregnant simply because the mRNA vaccine, which is the one being offered to pregnant people, is still experimental and is still in Phase 3 trials (i.e. researching long term effects) ... it is the first publicly available vaccine of any kind that employs the particular new approach it uses (all other vaccines using this new approach, including cancer vaccines which also receive plenty of funding, are still in trials and have been for ~10 years.)

All the early data pointed to no increase in risk of miscarriage (which is why the advice changed in some countries from do not have it, to have it), but it can not yet give any information on any other longer term effects ... to baby or to adults.

There's already reports coming out about new suspected side-effects in adults, including enlarged heart muscles, kidney disorders etc, that may not become fully apparent for years. And that's not considering any hearsay reports about increases in abnormal pregnancy growth scans ... which may or may not be the case ... we don't know, simply because its too early to have any indepth research into these kinds of topics.

Plus there are still entire countries that are still not recommending the vaccine in pregnancy due to the lack of longer term data (including the one I currently live in!)

Essentially, I see it as all people (pregnant or not) who are having the vaccine now are basically agreeing to be part of the phase 3 long term studies. Which is absolutely fine, everyone can make their own choice. But my choice, particularly because I'm pregnant, is not to have it until there's more data available.

This thread is very interesting reading, thank you. I’m not pregnant but planning on trying for my second in the next month. I had the Astra Zeneca vaccine and a few days later news comes out that it wasn’t for my age group. This makes me very skeptical of doing any boosters while pregnant.

I shall read some of the links posted tonight to firm up my thinking.

I dislike posters on Mumsnet just shutting down people asking a question, surely that’s the whole point of this site is for discussion and reassurance.

For people worrying about changing advice, this is normal. As they collect data, scientists and clinicians change their advice based on this data. COVID is brand new, so there will be a lot of evolving advice.

The main change in recent weeks is the facts that significant numbers of women are becoming very ill in the third trimester and unfortunately their babies are being born preterm and some are dying.

It's about weighing known risks. You are at quite high risk of having an adverse events and harm coming to your baby if you catch COVID in your third trimester. You are at a very low risk of harm happening to your baby from the vaccine.

Nothing is perfect and I too understand the primal fear of putting something into your body you feel could harm your baby (it feels almost like an instinct not to do it a way).

BUT the risks of damage/death to your baby
are significant and it is avoidable.

I find this post very interesting so thank you for asking the question @doidontixdoidontix I am having my third baby and have been considering the best course of action regarding the vaccine as well. Now as most others have said, I’ve had all my vaccinations as have my children and three members of my family are in or have been in medical careers. I find the lack of data concerning but probably understandable as it is a new virus and time has not exactly been on our side with this one! However, the people who make the vaccines have said they are in phase three trials until 2023 so not a secret in anyway and there have been some bad reactions for some people who have been vaccinated, this is on the nhs yellow card data reporting website. There have been independent, highly respected doctors who have raised concerns. One of which is a lady called Dr Tess Lawrie (I think I’ve spelt her name correctly) who wrote an open letter with references to the government sighting her concerns (please see link below) and I think it is sensible to try and understand as much as we can so as to make an informed decision when choosing how to choose for ourselves and our children. This is not a new concept, it’s called informed consent and our lovely midwives give us all the information they can because of it. If you find it difficult to locate information there are a few places you can look but for now here is Dr Lawie’s letter...

b3d2650e-e929-4448-a527-4eeb59304c7f.filesusr.com/ugd/593c4f_b2acdef3774b4e9ca06e9fae526fd5cd.pdf

Re: the argument about 'long term effects' especially any negative ones - this just isn't how vaccines work. They simply don't last long as they're broken down by your body within days (non-live vaccines). Side effects for vaccines are normally measured in days/weeks because of the short time in which your body destroys the vaccine and creates antibodies that could fight a future infection. The vaccine itself never leaves your arm muscle.

This is very different to say, a drug or medication that you are exposed to for a longer period of time (say you took regularly for a month), giving it time to build up in your blood stream. Or perhaps it is stored in, say fat. This could effect you over a much longer period of time and longer term effects would be relevant.

Long term side effects of vaccines are antibodies.

@physicskate , I think the point of Phase 3 trials that study long term effects, which are still ongoing for the experimental mRNA vaccine, is to determine if the substance introduced to the body causes problems within the weeks after administration that may not become apparent for a few years afterwards ... such as enlarged heart muscles or kidney disorders (which have recently been reported and I assume investigations have started).

There was also a study released only today which has investigated the link between abnormal pregnancy growth scans and the vaccine. The study claimed to have found no link, but when you take a look, only 141 pregnant women were included in the study. So again, I would prefer to wait for more data on the topic, which will take time.

So I would say that the scientific community is very valid to continue with these long term studies. And I believe it is equally a very valid reason to hold off taking the vaccine until the scientific community have finished with their trials.

@jojojo82 - I don't disagree with you. But some women are saying they would want to wait to see what happens 10, 20 years down the line. Which probably isn't relevant given the RNA is broken down within days.

I don’t think it’s a stupid question at all. When making any choice I think it’s sensible to ask ‘what are the reasons to do it’ and ‘what are the reasons not to do it’. We know there are a ton of reasons to have the vaccine. OP’s just asking whether there are any evidence-based reasons NOT to have it. And the answer is no. But for some people the lack of evidence dissuades them from having it.

OP’s just asking whether there are any evidence-based reasons NOT to have it. And the answer is no.

This completely depends what you want evidence for? There is evidence that the vaccine is classed as experimental and still in Phase 3 trials, there is evidence that investigations into possible linked health issues are happening ... these are actually facts. So there are evidence-based reasons not to have it.

@jojojo82 but then you can't just view that in a vacuum. You must weigh up the evidence that the vaccine causes harm against the evidence that catching covid causes harm and then weigh up your risk of catching covid.

You have to make an active decision to get the vaccine. No such decision to make about catching covid, however. That's pot luck. So I get it that people struggle to make the decision.

@physicskate, I completely agree that you need to make your own choice.

I'm simply correcting the statement that there is no evidence-based reason to not get it, by giving some examples showing that there is.

It also goes both ways, you shouldn't want to only take the evidence for taking it in a vacuum.

This completely depends what you want evidence for? There is evidence that the vaccine is classed as experimental and still in Phase 3 trials, there is evidence that investigations into possible linked health issues are happening ... these are actually facts. So there are evidence-based reasons not to have it.

But my point is that there’s a distinction between a) a general lack of evidence (eg the vaccine is still in Phase 3 trials) and b) evidence of negative effects in pregnancy. OP is asking about the latter. It’s absolutely fine if people don’t want the vaccine because it’s still new. But I think it’s important not to confuse a absence of evidence with evidence.

@YouMeandtheSpew , this is why I specifically said it completely depends what you want evidence for.

If the OP had asked for evidence of negative side effects of the vaccine, then your point (a) would be relevant, there is a general lack of data to be able to derive evidence from this early on.

However the question was just 'Reasons not to vaccinate', which is a very wide and open topic, and by evidence-based, I would assume the OP wanted something more than 'because I don't want to install 5G in my brain'.

So I think the examples I gave to not vaccinate are suitable evidence-based reasons for the wider topic.

I have a reason you might want to consider. I just had to have surgery and whilst going through the paperwork for consenting for the op, the surgeon told me that the reason they had to stop all surgery but emergency during lockdown was due to the increased mortality rate.

If you have surgery and have COVID in your lungs at the time, you have something insane like a 1 in 3 chance of dying (this is what he said, I don’t have a source for this and I am pregnant so he may have meant for pregnant people rather than all). And that’s at any age / without other conditions. So imagine if your birth doesn’t go to plan and you’re rushed off for a crash section under GA.

I am double jabbed and had a COVID test when I arrived at hospital but I thought about this a lot as I was going down to theatre.

Also sorry, I realise you wanted reasons not to but as this was so specific I had to share. It’s been on my mind.