Guest Post for Wriggly Rascals - Should I have my baby immunised?

Getting your kids vaccinated is a no brainer……. Isn’t it?

At one time I used to think it was. I would scoff at parents who didn’t get their children vaccinated but all that changed as soon as I got pregnant. I started to do a bit of research on the UK’s and US’s vaccination programmes and to be honest what I found was disturbing, confusing, misleading and totally bewildering.

Whilst I was pregnant with my first child I saw an interview with Jenny McCarthy whose son has autism, which she believes was caused by vaccinations and understandably she is very anti vaccinations. I listened with interest to her views on the subject, I looked at her website which has an enormous amount of information and I read forums where people discussed whether or not to vaccinate, I read a lot of stories where parents were convinced that the vaccines had caused problems with their children’s development. This lead me to do research myself, I read a lot of denials from the government, drug companies, doctors who all claim that vaccinations are safe and that parents who didn’t vaccinate were totally irresponsible.  I also of course came across Dr Andrew Wakefield’s paper which says that he thought single vaccinations are possibly safer than the MMR. Then you have the other argument against single vaccinations, if you chose the single vaccination route then you are exposing your child to 3 x the amount of mercury, so we shouldn’t vaccinate at all and just let the body’s immune system do its job….. Argh!!

Itis a quagmire of contradictions, opposing arguments and just down right scaremongering. I was also being bombarded with swine flu vaccination scare stories as we were in the middle of the Swine Flu outbreak when my eldest was born. Interestingly enough we are now starting to hear reports of cases that the Swine Flu vaccination has caused narcolepsy in some children and that Finland are no longer using the vaccine on the under 20’s unlike the UK who are still using it, put that together with the recent measles outbreak because people have chosen not to vaccinate, it seems like we can’t ever do the right thing.

The question I asked myself at the time was which could I handle more: My child falling ill or worse dying from a preventable illness or my child being disabled from my choice to try and protect them?

It was a tough decision but in the end I vaccinated my girls, I felt the odds of my child being affected by the vaccine was minimal, even though I do think there is a risk with the vaccines regardless of the claptrap that the government and drug companies try to tell us but for me the benefits far outweighed the risk.  We have eliminated and controlled serious illnesses with our vaccination programmes and so it made sense to have it done, even though in all honesty it also terrified me, but I am my own worse enemy as I like to know the ins and outs of everything so I scare myself to death in my quest  for knowledge.

It wasn’t without its problems though, my eldest who is 3 now started walking at 10 months old so by the time she had her MMR at 13 months she was a competent walker, she was an agile little thing that could run, spin around etc. She had her MMR in the morning and by the afternoon she was limping, then by tea time she was walking on her tiptoes on her left leg, by bed time she wouldn’t walk at all and she reverted back to crawling. I was terrified that I had damaged her, that she was going to go into a shell, that I had caused her to become autistic, I had crippled her…all these awful thoughts went through my head, I was heartbroken. The next day she still wouldn’t walk so I took her to the doctors, they thought she was just a bit sore and to come back in a week or so if she was no better. I really felt like I was being fobbed off, it was terrifying but thankfully she did get better but it took a good four or five weeks for her to start walking properly again, it was the longest few weeks of my life, her leg was very bruised so I guess it was just really sore for her, I reported it again to the doctors but unfortunately it did seem like anything negative about the vaccinations were simply ignored and there was no procedure in place at my doctors to report any concerns or side effects, which is both disappointing and a little worrying.

Asa parent I don’t want to be misled, mollycoddled or lied to, what I want is the truth so I can make an informed decision on the best thing for my child. If there is a risk, tell me, give me the facts and figures because whatever you do in life there is always a risk.

Where am I now? Would I do it again?

Well my youngest has had all her vaccinations and I am happy to report that hers went smoothly, so yes I did it again and even though I had that scare and I do have my concerns I do advocate vaccinations. I couldn’t live with the guilt if one of my children contracted an illness that I could have prevented. 

I understand that this is not everyone’s choice, so my advice is to do your research, try and gather as much “rational” information as you can and do whatis best for you and your family.

Abig thanks to Wriggly Rascals for asking me to do this guest post for them, Iwas a bit nervous as it’s my first time and a much more serious topic than Inormally blog about. 

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About Wriggly Rascals

Wriggly Rascals was set upby Shona Motherwell, a frustrated mum of twins Mhairi and Archie to get mumstogether to share pregnancy, baby and toddler advice via quick surveys to getthe facts about what other mums do. Our mums pass on loads of great tips tomums who have asked for help. If you would like some advice, get in touch atwww.wrigglyrascals.com