MMR: A tough decision for any parent - my experience (MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?)

Member Name: mummy2harry

Product:	MMR Vaccination - Is it a Friend or Foe?
Date:	28/06/07 (1099 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Immunisation against 3 horrid diseases

Disadvantages: The bad press

When my son had his first set of immunisations when he was just 2 months old, I didn't think twice about letting the nurse inject him with all these vaccines, what was in them and the side effects, probably because I had not heard anything about them, good or bad. Yet when it came to my son having the MMR when he was 13 months old, I had a huge struggle over whether or not to give him this particular vaccine.

The MMR vaccinates against 3 diseases: Measles, Mumps and Rubella. It is a combined vaccine, and a live vaccine which means small amounts of the infections are injected into your child, to allow their immune system to fight it and become immune.

Over the last few years there has been a lot of information in the press about the MMR Vaccine, it's links with Autism and the NHS and the Government telling us it is a perfectly safe vaccination and that all children should be vaccinated with the MMR. Parents have come forward to the press and said that their children have been affected due to the MMR, and this has started up the whole cycle again.

I myself did a lot of research before making a decision one way or the other, as I knew it would be a hard decision to make and I was not going to make it lightly at all. I knew that I had 3 options open to me:
1. To give my son the MMR vaccine
2. To give him the MMR as 3 seperate vaccinations
3. Not to give him any vaccine at all.

Luckily, the third option was not one I was willing to consider so I had to look into the first two options. If I am honest, I was very much leaning towards option2, single vaccines. These would have to be done privately, and would cost roughly £100-£150 per injection, but I was willing to pay that if it would keep my son safe. However, the more I looked into it, the less certain about the idea I was.

The NHS does not offer single vaccines, and therefore the vaccines have to come from abroad, This means that the vaccines are not checked in the UK and they are not monitored for content. You would have to consult the doctor who would be administering the vaccines as to where they come from and what is in them but there is no guarantee they are safe. This is really what put me off the single vaccines.

I went online for hours and hours months before my son was due his MMR and looked up many websites, both government ones, NHS ones and parenting forums to find out peoples opinions of the MMR and also read some of the stories which are about MMR and its link to Autism. The government says that the link between Autism and the MMR has been disproved but there are still stories on the web which say otherwise. it is hard to know which to believe, but I am leaning more towards the link NOT being there now.

I think the only thing you can do is to weigh up all the evidence that you are able to get and make an informed and educated decision about a controversial subject. People will always disagree about the MMR, and there will of course be parents who choose not to vaccinate at all, but I knew for me I wanted my son to be vaccinated against these horrible illnesses, and I feel I made the best choice in the end by choosing to give him the MMR.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this has been helpful to you.

For more information on the MMR vaccine see the NHS site (this was a great site to use when I was researching the MMR)
http://www.mmrthefacts.nhs.uk/

Summary: MMR REVIEW