Hi,
The other day the dr told me that I would have to have booster shots for rubella, whooping cough and chicken pox while i'm in hospital after I have my baby. She also said that all the people who will be in contact with the baby in the first 8 weeks should get booster shots too.
So my question is, to all the people who've had babies before did you and your family members get these shots? I'm asking because my mum is against vaccinations and I don't think she would want to do it, would that have an affect on the baby?
I don't want my baby to get sick or anything but is asking everyone to get their vaccnations up to date a but too much to ask?

You don't have to have any of them. I had an MMR booster after DS1 was born 6 years because I had no rubella immunity (according to the test anyway) and looking back now wish I hadn't done it. I certainly wouldn't have required grandparents to get boosters either before they came anywhere near the baby, but again that is their decision to make about whether that is something they want to do.

Bearing in mind I am in NZ but it was never suggested to me or even recommended that I get vaccination boosters of anything. It's up to you as the patient to decide what you will and will not put in your body so you could have some, all or none of them.

I personally think it was too much of an ask, especially if one or more of those contacts has objections to them. Not because they want your baby to get sick, because of course no one wants that but it seems still seems unrealistic to me to expect EVERYONE who will be in contact with your baby to have boosters.

Well I think I want to get them because I have no immunity to anything because my mum doesn't agree with vaccines (so I didnt have any while I was growing up) and I really don't want to pass anything onto my baby. Especially since it will be winter when he's born and I get sick all the time.
I am a bit worries about getting the shots though since I have never had any before, did you have bad reactions to it?

Hi Steph

MY doctor also told me the same thing, which I found a bit odd because when DS1 was born she didnt mention anything to me about it, so I think it must be a new thing that they are recommending.

My family have already had their boosters and I will be having mine after bubs is born.

It is totally up to you whether u get the vaccinations or not but it is also extremely rare to get reactions nowadays, and if you do they are normally only mild.

Hi, I had whooping cough when I was 10wks old and nearly died, but it was too early for vaccination of course. Mum was told I couldn't ever have the booster/vaccine because I had had it and would get it again, it was never suggested after DS or DD (both routinely vaccinated - I have strong beliefs for it - I nearly died from Hepatitus A - not usually deadly - after 1 mouthful of food which I spat out - I was going to have the vac 6 months earlier before travelling but my Dr was trying to save my mum $90! - I spent 3 months off school in yr 12 and it cost mum over $5500 in medical expenses over the year) - could have been totally avoided and then low and behold last year I got whooping cough, still have the cough 3 months later - I was told if I'd had vac I wouldn't have had it so badly, its terrible so I'd get it as it protects your bub, and its easier to have one jab than you helpless with a very sick baby in hospital.

As of 2008 NSW health has been running a promotion to get all new parents immunised due to whooping cough running riot. DS was born in Adelaide (no choice of mine), and out of curiosity, i asked them if they do it, and they dont. DH and I had the shot, my parents had already had it for my niece, so they are covered. Personally i have seen a baby with whooping cough, and i would be reccommending it, but it is up to you.

Thanks for your in-put everyone. I will get the shots and I'm sure my partner will too. I don't know if all the grandparents will be willing though. The dr said that if they don't and even if they're not sick they can still pass on stuff like whooping cough to the baby.
Does anyone know how likely this is?
Sorry I'm asking so many questions about this, I'm just a scared first time mummy and I'm just thinking since he is due in June when everyone's getting colds and what-not I shouln't take any risks.

I can understand your concern... its very scary. My son was born in 2008 and I was never told about everyone needing immunisations as Ross's post said.

I do believe (although dont quote me on this) that if u are breastfeeding the baby gets some immunity from you... my son was born in April and while everyone else around us got colds and such he didnt get sick... not sure if thats because I was breastfeeding or not. lol. sorry i'm rambling.

have a chat with your doctor and voice your concerns... if worse comes to worse u might just have to tell those that are sick or been into contact with someone sick not to come near you.

again i apologise for my rambling lol

Just because you have a vaccine doesn't make you immune....just as NOT having them means you aren't immune. Not sure where the 'logic' comes from on that..........the basis for vaccination is that getting a jab means you are immune (which isn't always the case) and that being regularly exposed WITHOUT getting the disease or the vaccine means you aren't. Which makes zero sense to me. LOL

I didn't personally have a 'bad' reaction to them so when I say I wish I hadn't done it, it's because I question the need for 'boosters' when vaccines are 'sold' as being a you get x many shots as a child and that's it. I had 2 doses of MMR as a kid and according to a test (which doesn't actually mean you are immune, it just measures the levels and based on the parameters of the test deems you immune or not)and I was told I wasn't immune to rubella when I was pregnant with DS1. I was 'immune' with DS2, so I queried it with a nurse and she said I was probably fine with DS1, just not enough for the parameters of the test that they did.....which was telling to me.

Have you asked your mum whether you had any or all of those diseases in childhood because if you did then you should be immune anyway; getting the disease (except in the case of whooping cough which you can get more than once) confers lifelong immunity to that disease, with a vaccine it wears off, thus the 'boosters'...though sure your mum might have mentioned this to you already. LOL

I am pretty sure I had WC 18 months ago, had a cough for 3 months, more annoying than anything to be honest and no one else in the house got it.........that is DP, DS2 who would have been 6 months old at the time and still bf and DS1 who was 4.5. Exposure does not guarantee transmission, it took four exposures to CP before DS1 finally got them and then he had a really mild dose, while DS2 got them at 11 weeks at his first exposure. Just as exposure doesn't mean you get ill, nor does getting ill mean that you will be at deaths door or really sick. To some extent baby will be protected by placental antibodies after they are born, and for some things via bm BUT vaccine induced immunity, which is what most women have now, is not as effective at being transferred to babies as natural immunity is.

At the end of the day it is up to you...but as an aside, according to health professionals my FIL would probably be labelled as not immune to CP, but seeing as he is in his late 60's and NEVER had them, I can't see how he can't be immune. You have to do what feels right for you, like I said I personally wouldn't require boosters for myself and everyone around me but that's me.

Aside from me being a mum my profession is in Paediatric (children) nursing and the long and the short of all the hoo ha about vacinating adutls against whooping cough is that babies under 12 months are unable to be vaccinated against whooping cough therefore they are more likely to become sicker if they do contract WC as they have little to no immunity against wc at that stage. Especially so if you (as mum) are not immune then bub won't have any immunity to wc. The other reason for the push is that 70% of sick babies who are hospitalised with wc catch the illness from an adult (usually a family member with close regular contact with bub) who have lost there immunity over time; WC is one of those illnesses that your immunity reduces over time.

Personally have nursing young babies < 6 months old with this illness; it is so hard to see them struggle for each breath they take and many young babies < 3 months can die due to further complications including systemic (whole body) infections due to there age; not necessarily WC.

I personally asked my parents and in laws and DH and i to get immunised; which all had no problem doing.

But at the end of the day it is a personal choice and you can only inform people of why you are requesting they get immunised, but in the end you can't control everyone elses doing. If there are people who refuse to have it; if at any stage they are unwell with wc symptoms; don't let them near or around your baby until they are fully recovered.

Hope this helps; sorry it was a bit long.

It was never mentioned to me when i had bubs 5 weeks ago.
I wouldn't ask my parents etc to get their vaccinations.

Posted by: cosmo12
babies under 12 months are unable to be vaccinated against whooping cough therefore they are more likely to become sicker if they do contract WC as they have little to no immunity against wc at that stage.

Babies under 12 months can get vaccinated against whooping cough, it's called the DTaP...the P part being pertussis more commonly known as whooping cough. Here in NZ they get it at 6 weeks, 3 months, 5 months and again at 4 years.

Hi steph

Im very low in rubella and due in june as well. I apparently need a rubella shot after bub is born and am still deciding on swine flu one. No one around me needs boosters and my DD has had all her shots. I had whooping couch a year ago and chicken pox at 4 years ago so i have immunity to them. Get a second opinion, i am. Im all for immunizations but my immune system isn't to good when im pregnant (it took over a week to get rid of gastro and im getting lots of colds) so im iffy on the swine flu.

Posted by: C_hippie_kiwi

Posted by: cosmo12
babies under 12 months are unable to be vaccinated against whooping cough therefore they are more likely to become sicker if they do contract WC as they have little to no immunity against wc at that stage.

Babies under 12 months can get vaccinated against whooping cough, it's called the DTaP...the P part being pertussis more commonly known as whooping cough. Here in NZ they get it at 6 weeks, 3 months, 5 months and again at 4 years.

Yes I am sure babies in Australia are vaccinated against whooping cough at 2 4 and 6 months and then 4 years, but correct me if I am wrong smile

I asked all the grand parents here to have their booster and were all quite happy to do so smile

Oh Steph, what a difficult position you are in.

My personal opinion is to follow the docs suggestions. If my Mum (or other family member) wasn't willing to get the vaccine for the health & safety of my child... her grandchild; then I'm sorry to say she wouldn't be seeing her grandchild for 8 weeks.

It sounds really harsh, but if something happened to my child that was clearly preventable... words can not explain.

The most important thing is, that you & your husband do what you want to do for your baby.

I hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well.

(Sorry, I've just realised I feel really strongly about this! LOL)

Noo its not too much. My inlaw's got the vaccine as did myself and my DP.

Hi I think it's a good idea to get some vaccinations particularly if you tend to get ill. my immunity to the childhood diseases is a1 and same for my partner Luke as we are both immunised. But as a added precaution my partner has just had a whooping cough, diptheria and teatnus shot as a precaution in prep for our son's arrival in late April. my mother and father have offered to get the booster as well.
The thing that bought the idea on was the fact that a friend's child had been diagnosed with whooping cough and we didn't want to risk ourselves.

Thanks everyone, I really don't want to risk my baby getting whooping cough. Also, I have never had chicken pox or been vaccinated and I've had one MMR when I was a baby (never had rubella either). The hard part will be my mum, I haven't even spoken to her about it yet. I can't cut her off from seeing baby until he's 8 weeks. That would brake her heart (she's so excited to be a grandma). I guess I should just talk to her cos you never know what she might say!

HI,

my immunity to rubella was ok but we all had a whooping cough booster as whooping cough vaccine only lasts 10 years or something.

We made all the grandparents and great grandparents have it too.
THere is no excuse for putting your baby in harms way i think.

Especially since my SIL in WA had whooping cough about 3 months after our DS was born!

i'm an avid supporter of vaccination, and when we heard about the new research into the whooping cough vaccine wearing off, we spoke with our gp who told us that since we had our boosters about 10 years ago in grade 12 we were still ok, so we spoke with our parents, explained the situation and they agreed it was a good idea. my dad didn't get done due to other health issues, but i think everyone else did. we didn't demand it to see our bub, and would have understood if they didn't but when we spoke with them they understood. aside from anything else, the elderly often also suffer quite badly from it so having an early booster now may help them in future years.

there was no need for any ressure, but we knew we had minimised chances of DD getting a nasty disease.

as far as i'm aware, most parents with even toddlers probably weren't asked about it as i think it's only come to light in the last 1-2 years that it does 'wear off' in time.

it depends on your immunity - if your dr says you don't have immunity any more then that is why. i haven't heard of telling everyone else to get it tho, must be a new thing the gp's are doing to cover their backs.

most babies/children that get whooping cough catch it from there parents or someone who looks after them a lot.

whooping cough is a very scary illness. my sister had it last year and ended up in hospital with pneumonia and her DS also had it. they were very very sick. so it pays to have the vaccine. ever since having it they have been picking up other sicknesses quite easily so it seems to have weakened their immune system. my sister wishes that they had known her immunity was low so she had had the vaccine, but when she had her last baby they didn't routinely check that.

i don't understand why people "don't believe in it". i bet they would if they were on deaths door. i would rather have a quick jab than put my children or my family/myself at risk. whats the harm in it?! bad reactions are very rare.

Posted by: Mum<3sJosh
i don't understand why people "don't believe in it". i bet they would if they were on deaths door. i would rather have a quick jab than put my children or my family/myself at risk. whats the harm in it?! bad reactions are very rare.

I think this is part of the problem, people who think that vaccination works don't seem to understand why people question. For many parents who don't vaccinate or selectively vaccinate or delay vaccinating 'severe' reactions either don't feature high on the list of why they do what they do, or the chance of 'severe' reaction has NO bearing on the decision they make. A parent who decides for whatever reason will have done heaps of research, looking at BOTH sides of the 'argument' and then decided that for THEM there isn't a need to or to hold off on doing so. I did ZERO research about vaccination when DS1 was born, I was of the belief that it's what you do and cause everyone I knew was fine then that was proof that it was safe and effective. I decided that I couldn't bury my head in the sand any longer and I started looking into the whole area. What I found opened my eyes, challenged my beliefs and had me questioning what I had done in the past and how I wanted to proceed for the future.

Having a jab doesn't mean your kids won't get sick, having a jab doesn't mean that your kid won't get one of said VPDs and NOT end up in hospital nor does it mean that any child who doesn't get a jab will get a VPD or be deathly ill from it if they do. There is alot of fear that comes with being a parent, how you deal with that fear is up to each individual family. As to what the harm is in it? What if your kid is the 1 in a million (or whatever ridiculous number they are putting on that these days) child who DIES from a vaccine? What if your child is the 1 in 500 child who gets a brain infection from a vaccine?

I don't need to believe in vaccines to accept help from the medical profession if I or my kids get really sick.......there's no law that says I have to accept ALL medical treatment or accept none, that's the lovely thing about choice. If you believe vaccines do what they say they do and want to get jabbed from cradle to grave then go for it but there are some people who don't want that for themselves and their families and they have just as much right as anyone else to believe what they want, even if someone else thinks what they believe is 'wrong'.

The thing is that so many parents just vaccinate because they are told to, or think they have to, and they don't think twice about it. At the end of the day, if you are making INFORMED decisions, whatever that decision is will be the 'best' one for YOU.

hmm - this is interesting.

Anyway, we are of the selective vaccinating type parents. DS was vacc'd as per the schedule, cause that is what we were told to do - as a first time parent, i didnt really know any better/worse & wanted the best for my child. Now that i am older & "wiser" - LOL, with DD we have had a bit of a different attitude & she hasnt been vacc'd since the 6 month ones.

Here is how i see it. Vaccinations over all this time, has reduced the incidence of people dieing from these preventable communicable diseases. With the natural progression of free thinking parents who do not want to vacc their kids, the incidence rate of kids getting sick is again on the increase. No problem to me, these are communicable diseases. Unless you have a naturally occuring immunity, then the jab in the arm isnt making you 'immune'. Yes it may help reduce how sick you get, but whether you put your kids thro it is totally up to you. This is not a decision that you should allow anyone else to make for you.

In regards to the actual questions of the OP, i dont understand why you would get boosters for chicken pox & rubella as an adult. Sounds like scare tactics & revenue generating schemes from the drug companies to me. It is more likely that a kid in the park is going to pass on the disease than yourself or your parents.

Whooping cough on the other hand i can understand. But i think that depends on where you live. If whooping cough is running rampant where you live, then yes i would do it, but if it doesnt, then no i wouldnt do it. Where i live, there is minimal incidence of whooping cough, so i would deem it unneccesary - do you know what i mean? Ask your mum, she might understand if there has been a lot of media surrounding an increase in whooping cough where you live, you just never know, she might say yes to that one!

The thinking behind booster shots is that immunity is provided by cells, and as we go through life cells die. When you are given the original shot, your body begins to produce immune cells that recognise certain markers on the disease cells you are being vaccinated against, and only that disease. Because immune cells only recognise one kind of cell, as you get older and the cells begin to die off, they need to be replaced, which is why you are supposed to have booster shots.

But as Christina has said, just because you have a vaccine doesn't mean your body has produced those immune cells, in which case you would have no immunity to the disease. Likewise if you haven't had a vaccination does not mean that you're not immune. Any exposure to the disease would cause your body to begin producing immune cells even if you don't get sick, so even without the vaccine it is possible to have immunity. Having said that, having immunity doesn't mean that you won't still get sick, it just means that the cells needed to fight the disease are already in your body so it doesn't need to waste time making them. That's why people say that having a vaccine means that you don't get the disease as bad as if you didn't. Its not that you don't get it as bad, its just that your body attacks it twice as fast and twice as hard.

A simple blood test will be able to tell you if you have immunity to certain diseases, so if you are unsure about getting the jabs then maybe you could have the blood tests, and if you are immune already then you don't need to worry. If you are not then you may want to consider some or all of the jabs, because most fatalities from whooping cough occur in babies under 3 months old. Having said that though, for the first few weeks of life your baby will carry any immunity that you have, so if you are immune then your baby will be for a few weeks too until he/she develops their own immune system.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Chiliwoman In regards to the actual questions of the OP, i dont understand why you would get boosters for chicken pox & rubella as an adult. Sounds like scare tactics & revenue generating schemes from the drug companies to me. It is more likely that a kid in the park is going to pass on the disease than yourself or your parents.[quote] The reason they suggested rubella and chicken pox vaccines is because I have no immunity to chicken pox and extremely low immunity to rubella. I had blood tests early in pregnancy. I have also never had either of these diseases.