I think in all fairness, it is a number of factors that have helped see the huge reduction in childhood diseases in Australia and around the world. Not only vaccination.
We now know that isolating, good hygiene and health standards contribute to having a healthy resistance to disease.
We now know what a big part breast feeding plays in the first few months of a childs life. How the mothers immunity (life long for herself if she has actually had measles or chicken pox etc) is passed to the newborn.
We also know that yes ,german measles vaccination for protecting an unborn child is necessary.
We now know in hindsight, that Thalidomide was not safe. Doctors did not know this at the time.
Do we know for example, with certainty, that the MMR vaccination is safe?
There are many parents who have had bad experiences with this vaccination who question it's safety.
We are lucky in Australia, that as a community we have worked hard to reach a point that we have minimised these childhood illnesses that I had when I was a child. I assume I passed on my lifelong immunity to my children, who had these illnesses, mumps, measles, chicken pox - but in a much milder form. This was before immunisation was offered in Australia for these illnesses. In my experience as a mother and as a child nurse over this time, I only saw one child with a complication from measles. I saw many children hospitalised for illnesses that were magnified because of lack of nursing care at home and a poor health status to begin with.
In Sweden, no measles at this time, no need to vaccinate at this time.
If we could have the same policy here in Australia and perhaps add to it :If you go overseas or you come to Australia you must have all your vaccinations covered. This would surely help keep our community immunity and health standards protected and save mothers from having to make tough decisions to vaccinate or not to vaccinate with all those vaccinations now part of the schedule.
I feel very sorry for all you mums out there having to make such tough decisions. I would really like to see more compassion and kindness from people on all forums who say some very harsh things. You made a decision for your child based on...... maybe another mother has made her decision based on. perhaps, ..... a baby who was severely jaundiced at birth, a baby who is not at daycare everyday and is at home, It really isn't your business to judge. You don't have all the information.
That is the problem, we don't have all the information. We need to investigate, support and share our concerns, but with kindness and concern for all involved.
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