I don’t want to start a vaccination/anti-vax debate, I’m just looking for different views on the matter.
I’ve got a mum friend whose little boy is a week younger then mine. I found out recently that she has chosen not to vaccinate her son and has decided to do homeopathic vaccinations - I guess something is better then nothing.
I absolutely love spending time with her and her son but it makes me slightly nervous to have my son around hers because of this. I know my little boy could catch anything from anyone but for some reason this really plays on my mind.
Do I just forget it and keep spending time with her and her little boy or distance myself?
Thanks xx
15 Replies
If vaccines work, then you have nothing to worry about.
By the sounds of it, the child is too young to have been fully vaccinated. So there are many vaccine preventable diseases they could catch. And also, vaccines aren't always 100% effective. I'm fully vaccinated. Plus extras for overseas travel. But my body doesn't produce antibodies to the chicken pox. Herd immunity is what has prevented me from getting chicken pox.
Vaccines definitely raise your immunity and if he catches something he is vaccinated for it will be a much milder case.
Homeopathic vaccines are effectively doing nothing, not even close to doing something.
Just be careful. If either kid is sick don’t have a play date. Practice good hygiene etc.
You generally don’t know who is vaccinated and who isn’t. Will you stop playing with families who haven’t bothered with that years flu jab?
I would be distancing myself - purely a personal reason because i am so pro- vaccination that it would frustrate me that she CHOSE not to protect her child and countless others that can't be vaccinated.
The risk is more to the unimunised child tho than your own immunised child. If your child and theirs were playing together and were exposed to a communable disease at the same time, the majority of the risk is on the unprotected kid, not yours. The risk will still be low to your protected child.
I know but immunisation isn't just about protecting my child. There are people who legitimately cannot have vaccines who are protected by herd immunity.
He is susceptible to illnesses that your son isn't. Any other illness, both children have the exact same risk. The risk is to that child, not yours.
I would be more concerned about you or your son passing something on to the unvaccinated baby. He is the one at risk. How stupid can some people be, to purposely endanger your child 🤦♀️
Nah, I'd be distancing myself.
For 2 reasons.
1. Whooping cough, measles - both can still make a vaccinated child very sick.
Her child is far more at risk than yours but there's still a risk, albeit a small one, for your son.
2. My moral objections. I couldn't be friends with someone with these kind of views.
Whilst I take your first point as valid. I am just stunned by your second “I couldn’t be friends with someone with these kind of views”. So You couldn’t be friends with someone who has a different view on life which is maybe due to religious or medical reasons. What a boring friendship group you must have made up of people who all think act and do exactly the same because they don’t want to disagree
Be stunned all you like. I have a pretty broad friendship group made up of people from many walks of life. Vaccinations and healthcare is something I feel extremely strongly about, if my any of my friends could not vaccinate for a valid medical reason that would be entirely different.
Any other reason for not vaccinating would just conflict too much with my moral compass to make a friendship work.
To add. Someone I love dearly has been impacted from a vaccine preventable disease. Kinda changes your perspective on life and shapes your values...
I agree, I couldn’t be friends with someone like that either....some things you cant get past and this is one for me.
I have 4 kids, my youngest is 16 and they have all survived childhood playing and socialising with whoever they liked and I never had any idea if they were vaccinated or not. I honestly don't care what other people choose to do with their kids. There are unvaccinated children everywhere, daycare, schools, playgrounds, sports. If you stop your child playing with this boy because of this then you will also have to ask all of his future friends and random plays if they are vaccinated, good luck.
There's such a thing as homeopathic vaccinations?
Googling furiously begins...
1- It plays on your mind because then media had programmed you to be afraid of diseased that there are vaccines for, you don’t worry that your baby is going to catch HIV. However we have been programmed to fear diseases like hep b - babies are vaccinated for on the day of birth. Both diseases are spread through unprotected sex and needle sharing.
2-If you read the actual vaccine inserts they all clearly state that they vaccine will not prevent you from catching the disease.
3- the child can not give your child a disease they don’t have.
4- why don’t you have an open chat with the mother / friend about her choices and ask her to share some info with you that made her choose to go the way she has van vice versus? Obviously make sure they are from reputable sources