I got the second dose of my MMR last week as planned.
And Beanie is getting his first dose early, tomorrow. I happen to come from one of the worst countries in Europe for take-up of the MMR vaccine and live in the worst country. Here there is yet another outbreak of measles at the moment because vaccinating your child is optional and too many parents decide not to. A 12 year old girl died here in January because of complications due to measles.
I called my paediatrician's office for advice on how to avoid exposing Beanie until he gets his shot at 12 months. Their advice is that he get vaccinated early; it can be given from 9 months of age apparently.
In the meantime, we've stopped going to our weekly playgroup.
I know that the link between MMR and autism has been thoroughly discredited, and I'm a scientific kind of girl. Right now the risk of him getting measles is way way higher than the risk of him having a problem because of the vaccine. It's still in the back of my mind though. And we all know what statistics mean round here.
6 years ago
3 comments:
I know, I was scared of that shot too. Damn Jenny McCarthy. You're right--even though the autism link has been discredited, I had those thoughts in the back of my head, too. It's hard thinking that bad things only happen to other people's children, when bad things have happened to your own. It sucks. I know that Beanie will do fine. Ben had a little fever a few days later, but that was it.
Thanks for checking in on me :) I'm hanging in there-just one more week. It's a very long week though.
Did you see the report that that original Lancet study may have been just straight fraud? Makes me so mad, partially because though we know it's crap, there's that small thing in the back of our minds, just because of how our minds work (I started reading a fascinating book on the subject recently, and in particular it explains how we can know something like this to be shit, and still worry about it).
Good on you for being proactive, and I hope it all goes smoothly. About a year and some months ago I refused an MMR at work because they said I couldn't get pregnant for 3 months after. At the time I was expecting to start a cycle of IVF any day. This reminds me that I should go get my shot now. Just have to make sure it's ok while breastfeeding. This is just by way of saying please check on how long they want you to wait after.
Here in Oz the government actually pays you to get your kids immunized. Still, not everyone gets it done.
Good luck tomorrow. You will be fine. Beanie will be fine.
Sorry its taken me so long to catch up. :)
Hugs
xxx
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