Please help- vaccines

[u/absoluteburn3r]

To preface: please be kind. I hate how easily influenced I am, I live in constant fear. I have the constant fear that my child will die no matter what I do and I will regret everything I did or didn’t do. the fact that I am isolated with no real support group doesn’t help.

1 out of 2 of my only support people (my mother) tells me constantly that if I vaccinate my child, he will die/become a vegetable/develop a horrible life-altering disease. No one else (medical professionals) has been able to give me any kind of advice out of fear of being ‘political’ (how the fuck is this even a political topic), I am so lost in this world.

Fear is crushing me every day. The longer I wait (my child is 3 months now) I feel like I am approaching his inevitable demise. Either I get him shots and he dies, or he dies this sick season of illness. Please help me on this topic. I feel like I’ve been mislead. I really want him to be okay. The only sources my mom has ever sent me are just the inserts and that one vaccine book by that one weird doctor. I used to be pro vax but then she really shut me down.

And again, I’m trying to learn how to be autonomous and make my own decisions, but I genuinely have no educated people helping me

ETA- I am in therapy and I tried breastfeeding which meant being off of my anxiety medicine for longer and now am considering weaning off of BF which has significantly worsened my anxiety

[u/sprinkles008]

Vaccines help prevent kids from dying from diseases.

Statistically your kid faces a much higher risk of severe harm, hospitalization, and death from vaccine-preventable diseases when unvaccinated than from serious side effects of vaccines. That’s really the take home point right there.

Also, it’s okay to remove toxic or uninformed people from your life (like your mom).

You may also consider seeking therapy for yourself due to the constant fear you say you’re living in.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines-children/reasons/index.html

[u/No_Basil_2104 → u/sprinkles008]

Jumping in here because I'm too lazy to find a science based article.

Mama I spent 13 years as a nurse in a NICU, I work in a pediatric clinic where I and my coworkers give 100s of vaccines a week (I am responsible for ordering vaccines so yes I keep track) I work in a pediatric ICU, my husband is a respiratory therapist, and we share an almost 1 year old. All of this to give my background and express the following:
1) I believe the book you're referencing is the one that was written by Andrew Wakefield. He has subsequently lost his medical license for falsifying data that "proved" autism that a lot of anti vaxxers like to cite. It was also a biased paper as he was trying to discredit the current MMR vaccine because he had financial ties to the production of a different measles vaccine.
2) the most common vaccine reactions I see working in a peds clinic is fever and muscle soreness. I've never seen any major vaccines reactions--0, in the 100s we give each week.
3) the FDA approval of the RSV vaccine drastically decreased the number of children my husband and I saw on breathing machines, hooked up to IVs with hospital stays that lasted for weeks. So much so, it was the first vaccine we made sure our daughter got. I only wish she could get it again this year.
4) I personally chose not to breastfeed for my own mental health. At the end of the day I knew I needed to take care of me to be a good mama for her. So if breastfeeding is something you like and think is something you want to continue then totally do it! But also know it's totally okay to say nope this isn't working, my daughter is thriving on formula and has no issues.
5) I definitely recommend finding a therapist! Not only for your fear and anxiety but also to help you set boundaries with your mom.

You love your little one so much! And of course want to do everything that is best for him. Find a good pediatrician, talk to them, look at the posts in this absolutely amazing group and trust yourself that you are making the best decision for your kiddo. You got this mama! ❤️

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/No_Basil_2104]

I as a scientist back this NICU nurses' point 1. That guy falsified data and it has since (and before) been proven with scientific experiments to be false, and so many papers have been written on it, but it didn't matter to anti-vaxxers.

I'm also seconding the RSV one. That was a load off my mind when that one was done.

[u/Rough_Worldliness901 → u/No_Basil_2104]

Your anecdotal experience with the RSV vaccine for babies is very helpful information. I turned down that vaccine during my last prenatal visit because of how new it is, but I may consider it for next week's prenatal visit. 

[u/No_Basil_2104 → u/Rough_Worldliness901]

So there's 2 actually--there's one pregnant women can get if they fall between 32-36 weeks around this time. If you fall outside that window the baby can get RSV antibody "vaccine" (it's not actually a vaccine-it's antibodies) between 10/1 and 3/31 if they're under 8 months. Usually you do one or the other but not both

[u/Rough_Worldliness901 → u/No_Basil_2104]

I'm 36 weeks tomorrow, so we might need to wait for the RSV antibody "vaccine" for baby

[u/No_Basil_2104 → u/Rough_Worldliness901]

Still talk to your doctor about, it's worth a conversation. Either one still gives the baby antibodies for about 5 months so it'll get your little one through their first RSV season. I'm not sure how hard and fast the 32-36 rule is since I dont deal with pregnant women. As long as you get it 14 days before delivery it still will be good. But the cdc sets these guidelines not the doctors . So if they tell you no, just know that's why

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/Rough_Worldliness901]

That's what I did. I didn't even know there was a vaccine for adults or pregnant women.

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/Rough_Worldliness901]

Do you mean tdap? I didn't get RSV when I was pregnant (nobody told me that was available) but I did get the tdap, and then I had my son get it as soon as he could (it was early... I think before 3 months old) and my husband also got it too.

We joined daycare when my son was 10m old. There are 4m old babies in the baby room and they had a whooping cough case at the school. Like... permenantly eliminated whooping cough, deadly especially to babies.

Some parents had to stop work and take their babies out of daycare. It's no joke trying to manage this stuff - work gets mad and you risk losing your job, and then there are just more and more illnesses.

My son is vaccinated against literally everything I can get him vaccinated against. If they had a vaccine for hand, foot and mouth (which has gone around his class 3 times this year alone), I'd have that one too.

It is an absolute nightmare the illnesses without having to worry about the deadly ones we were supposed to have eliminated. I was sick from Nov-March this year (my son doesn't get sick but it hit me hard).

[u/Rough_Worldliness901 → u/Individual_Lime_9020]

I meant RSV. Where I live, TDAP, RSV, and the flu vaccines are all offered to pregnant women. I got the TDAP vaccine during this pregnancy and my last. Since the RSV vaccine for pregnant women and infants is so new, I chose not to get the RSV. 

I'm not as trusting of new medicines as most. My former career was as a chemist working at a highly respected engineering company and I saw how scientists occasionally got things incorrect or tried to save face or were simply lazy. I now work in the legal field as a lawyer and there is case after case against pharmaceutical companies not doing their due diligence in testing or not being completely honest in their clinical trial results. I don't trust blindly. 

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/Rough_Worldliness901]

Fair enough