CA Vaccine Law - Pt 2 - Now W/arguments about everything!

[Mama Mia]

Well, there is always a small risk when when drawing blood. I recently had some tests done, and the informed consent form included the risk of infection from the needle stick.

But in this particular situation there is literally 0 additional risk, as the blood draw is already being done for other reasons.

[3DMommy]

Have you checked with the public health department to see if they'll provide free or low cost vaccines? We moved once and had a several month wait to see the new ped. The local public health gave the vax the child was due for for free and on the day I walked in.

The antibodies in your milk work great for things he encounters orally, like norovirus and e coli, but don't help for airborne things like measles. Your boost for his measles immunity was transferred in utero and has been gone for a long time now (they wane over the first year, and are mostly gone by the first birthday). In fact, if your baby is like most two year olds, he's nursing so infrequently and so lightly that he's not getting the continuous oral antibody boost a small baby gets anyway.

The oertussis vax is pretty crap, especially compared to one like diptheria, but it does help significantly reduce the severity, and believe me, that is something you want, especially the younger the child, and with susceptible lungs like preemies have. And the crapness of the vax means that you and the other vaxxed adults could bring it home from the supermarket or work for the baby, which you're less likely to with some other diseases. Older adults can have low/no immunity to measles if they only received one vaccine (I'd say people roughly around the ages of 20-40 fall in this group). If the adults haven't had a booster they could bring measles home from work to the baby.

The DTaP is very useful, even for isolated people, as tetanus is in the soil everywhere, and can infect them from a wound you don't even notice.

There are actually very few vaccines which shed and pose a danger to immunosupressed people. I know the old polio vaccine did, but the new one does not. edit: yep, per the CDC the injectible polio vaccine is fine for close contacts of severely immunosuppressed people, and so is MMR. There are two flu vaccines, you'd use the injectible one.

Do you have health insurance yet? If not, call up the local public health and ask what they suggest. If they don't offer any vaccines they might know of clinics where you can get them for free or low cost. I wonder if you called a peds office and explained if they'd help out? Maybe do them for cost only?

Do you have a plan for what to start with? HiB gives me the heebie jeebies, but with measles around that might be a better start. You might be able to get most of them started on the same visit, especially with combos.

Out of interest do you mean no vaccines at all?

Not any on the schedule at ALL?

OkToBeTakei - No no vaccines at all at this point.

August - my almost 22 month old is exceptional (or annoying), and nurses 10+ times a day... Still, like actually nursing. He still does not have health insurance and I "make" too much money for PA, but not enough to cover health insurance on top of food and a roof over our heads. At this point he not only shows no signs of having been premature, but developmentally is ahead and I am now more comfortable with vaccinating. I haven't made a decision on what to get first, but I will look into those programs. I agree that HiB is creepy, but I'm also not a fan of multiple vaccines in the same visit so we will be doing one at a time.

[zebra #13]

Maybe if we vaccinate it, it'll get complications and die, because that happens all the time, you know.

Might work. It's already autistic.