Which 2-month vaccinations did you get?

[Lulu]

I don't limit the contact indefinitely, I still went to playgroups etc, but they were very small and most of the time the babies were in the pram or rolling on a blanket.

I didn't do shopping centres (aside from the fact its quicker if I go alone), a sling is good from protecting them from those ridiculous people that SNEEZE without a hanky - I also suppose I am lucky in that my friends and family won't hold a baby if they feel sick

As soon as they are mobile they start eating dirt and snails but thats ok, cos they are slowly building up their own immunities. I also don't have 8 million bleach/clean products in the house.

Pertussis bothers me too, as does the vacc

[rubibaby]

my boys had everything that was on the immunisation schedule...i did a lot of research and found it incredibly difficult to make the decision. in the end my dh and i decided it was better to immunise them against these diseases than risk either one of them catching something...i am relieved we made that decision, especially now as there has been a resurgance of whooping cough.

[Lulu]

I dislike the term immunisation....it implies there is immunity given and there certainly is NO guarantee of any defense at all

How are you going with all this SJ?

[Heaven]

I still have no idea!! lol. I just never want to have to decide! lol, that would be nice.
I saw that Chanel 7 are doing the other side of the vaccination debate this Sunday night so that will be interesting to watch.

I would love to not get any vaccinations for her the thing holding me back is will I be able to still do all the things I want with her and take her places without constantly being paranoid she'll catch something? Probably not. And if she did happen to get one of the more serious diseases I would feel awful.

She will not be getting all the vaccinations anyway, that much I've decided. Hep B I don't think she is at risk for at all, same with polio. The whooping cough one though...that's the hardest to decide.

How do I pick and choose though, I think I heard they all come in 2 needles!!

[Heaven]

The MCHN was asking me about vaccinations yesterday and I said I didn't know if she would be getting them and she told me that if I wanted the Rotavirus (I think that's the one) vaccination I have to get the 1st one before 12wks otherwise there's no point and they won't give it. She said it's basically just diarrhea and causes dehydration. It didn't sound too serious and I don't know who DD would catch it from anyway! Anyone know more about it?? Thinking I might leave this one out too.

Anyway, I better make up my mind soon seeing as she's 2 months old today!

[Lulu]

Even if you did vacc her, you still need to keep babies away from high risk areas - well thats how I look at it anyway!

You can still review the decision, you may want to wait till she is older and her body somewhat more able to cope. Like I said before, mine have both had meales and mumps and I hope they can catch CP somehow - it wasn't too bad at all, just nurse them through it xoxoxox

[Celsie]

SJ - I know exactly where your head is at right now. You want to keep your baby safe from disease, if you don't vaccinate, she could get sick, but what if she has an adverse reaction to the vaccine? You wouldn't forgive yourself either way. And like me, DH has/had a differing opinion in regards to vaccination.

I have dvd from V.I.S.A. (Vaccine Investigation South Australia) called Investigate Before You Vaccinate. It has a lot of information about the possdible dangers associated with vaccinating. I'd be happy to post it to you. PM me if you're interested.

In the end, we've decided that DD will have some, but not all. She didn't have Vitamin K or Hep B at birth. She will not have Hep B. We've spoken to our GP about which he feels are absolutely necessary and surprisingly, it was only one or two. DS had all his vaccinations up until 6 months when I discovered the possible dangers involved with vaccinating, so has had none since. He didn't have MMR (neither will DD) and certainly not chicken pox.

Our doctor said, if we were to decide we wanted not to vaccinate at all, he's suggest that we do at least get the tetnus vaccine, as you cannot get natural immunity to tetnus and once you've got it, it's too late.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what anyone else says, it has to be your decision and one that you can live with.

Good luck!

[Celsie]

The MCHN was asking me about vaccinations yesterday and I said I didn't know if she would be getting them and she told me that if I wanted the Rotavirus (I think that's the one) vaccination I have to get the 1st one before 12wks otherwise there's no point and they won't give it. She said it's basically just diarrhea and causes dehydration. It didn't sound too serious and I don't know who DD would catch it from anyway! Anyone know more about it?? Thinking I might leave this one out too.

I actually caught this when I was 22 months old, from my brothers 4th Birthday Party at Hungry Jacks. Within four hours of the first symptom, my parents tell me I was as white as a sheet and my veins had collapsed. The emergency department spent two hours trying to find a vein to put the drip in. In the end, it went into my foot. I was constantly vomiting and spent four days in intensive care. My friend's son has just been released from hospital this week after having a confirmed case of rotavirus. He spent three days in hospital on a drip and was a very sick little boy. So, perhaps don't let this nurse make it sound like it's nothing major, because it is actually very dangerous. It's not just gastro.

My friends child caught it from a boy at her FDC providers house.

[Heaven]

Lulu- true!

Thanks for all that information Celsie!! Very helpful. I'd be interested to know which ones your Dr thought were neccessary?? I'm going to make an appt with the Dr next week but I don't know how she feels about vaccination and I want the truth, not to be scared or pressured into anything!! And I also need to know how you get the ones you want seperately?? Need to be armed with that knowledge so they don't just tell me there's no choice.

[Heaven]

Ok, well an update. DD still hasn't had any vaccinations. I'm a bit worried about whooping cough, that's the only one that scares me. So the Dr was finding out which vaccinations we could get seperately. The smallest one she said she can get is Diptheria, Tetnus, Whooping Cough, and Polio. That's still 4!! And I only want one of them. And even this is a big deal for her to try and order in.

Does anyone know if there's any way of getting them seperately??????????

[Pretty Butterfly]

Babe, I dont know anyone that has done it......

Fancy having Dip, Tet, and Polio in it.... 3 she wont need for a long time, if you choose to get them anyway....


Good luck......

[tenar]

DD had the Hep vaccination at birth, not because she is in any at-risk group for it, but because DH and I believe strongly in the public health effort to eradicate the disease from our population. Imagine if our children and ourselves were at risk from smallpox because some people didn't want to vaccinate against that 30 years ago (or whenever it was eliminated from Australia!). I think it's best for everyone, including ourselves, to support such initiatives.

DD will be having all of her 2 month vaccinations as soon as she is old enough - on the dot of 2 months. I know that we can't protect her from these things that are in the community because in the end, she has to go out.

DH and myself, and DD's grandparents, have just had the whooping cough vaccination too. It scares me that an adult who doesn't even feel sick could give that to her before she has any protection from it at all! At least she won't get it from those adults that she sees most often, but there is no way to make sure that none of the people who visit us in the next couple of months have it, or none of the people we pass in the park, and so on.



To change direction slightly, there's a point here that people are making that is just plain wrong, sorry to say, and it's a confusing thing so I'm going to have a go at explaining it again.

The problem is confusion about the meaning of the fact (let's assume it's a fact - I don't know that it is, but I'm happy to believe it because it makes total sense) that most of the kids who catch a given disease are vaccinated against it. Let's assume that thing is true, no arguments.

However this does not even slightly mean that it is therefore safer to not be vaccinated against that disease. It worries me a lot that so many parents seem to misunderstand this thing, and that it is mis-used as propaganda by anti-vaccination lobbyists. (some of the other things anti-vaccination people say I have no problem with - the issue is sifting out the real stuff from the fake stuff, and this one is a fake).

The point is that if 99% of kids are vaccinated against a disease, and the vaccination is not 100% effective (I don't think any of them are), then simply because there are so many more vaccinated kids than unvaccinated kids, you will get more vaccinated kids who catch the disease.

But, and this is the big big but: the individual risk to a particular child (my child, for example, or your child) of catching the disease is much much higher if they are not vaccinated than if they are vaccinated.

So if you want to choose to not vaccinate your child, that's your choice as a parent. But please don't choose it because you think that they are less likely to get the disease that way. The fact is that they are much more likely to get the disease if they are not vaccinated, and this is the risk that you are choosing to take - much better to take it open-eyed than to be blinkered about it.

I have explained this point in more detail with numerical examples in this post:
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...-diseases.html

I'm happy to answer any questions about it if you have them. It is a confusing point and I can understand why so many people misunderstand it. If I don't see your replies please PM me for a response (I am very busy with a newborn and a sick husband at the moment, not checking the forum that often).

My brother was not vaccinated against measles when we were kids. I still remember how sick he was when he caught it, years later, when we were on holiday, and how my mum felt about him missing his measles vac when she had gotten myself and my sister vaccinated against that (we didn't catch it). Seeing a child dangerously sick from an illness that is largely preventable does bring home the point about vaccinations, in my experience.

[Pretty Butterfly]

I will try to find some of the info I found, too tenar... but one point I do know before I go searching is that if you catch chicken pox whilst unvac'd, you cannot catch it again. You catch it after being vac'd, you can catch it multipul times.

BBL....

[beau_9]

this has been a very interesting thread to read, as i haven't even thought about vacc's yet, but just thought i'd mention pretty butterfly, my 38yr old aunt had ckn pox as a child (she's unvacc) and then has had it again each time her children had it - 3 times. and when she got it as an adult, it made her very sick both times. so it is rare however not impossible to catch it again, vacc or not.

[Pretty Butterfly]

oh, then i stand corrected!! thank you, i was under the impression, through research, that once the virus goes through you, you were then immune.
You learn something new every day!!

[beau_9]

i thought the exact same thing, that once you get it you can't get it again. but i also work in cc and i've heard other people say over the years that they've had it more than once also.
i've heard (don't quote me on it) the ckn pox virus doesn't leave your system in certain people with low immune systems and can re-occur in later life as shingles if stressed etc;, and can make the person quite ill.
i've also had a child at the centre who got a very low dose of ckn pox and then caught it again a few yrs later but it was very severe the second time round.

[Pretty Butterfly]

The only people I know personally who have had it more than once, were vac'd.
2 of my children included!!!

[leasha]

my 10wk old is getting all her vaccinations today.

as someone who experienced whopping cough at 19yrs of age, there is now way a little baby could survive that. i couldn't breathe when i had a coughing fit..so a little baby has no chance. i'm certainly not going to risk it. Whopping cough is so easy to get..you never know who is a carrier of the virus.