So I initially thought immunisation was compulsory. It then became clear that it was a decision we had to make. I discussed it with a number of friends. All of my friends have had their children immunised, except for a couple with whom I discussed. But it didn’t seem to me that there was any compelling reasons not to immunise. And it was made clear that the medical profession believes that it is very important, and that the risks attached to these first batch of vaccination are not so important that as to make one want to hesitate. Therefore we just went ahead and had the first batch of vaccines when she was two months.

Coming back to the first one, well, I’ll tell you a little bit about sort of how I would make my decisions. I think when I was a new mother, with my oldest one, it definitely took into account what my parents’ views were and the fact that I’d had immunisations as a child. So my mother had immunised us therefore that would affect my decision. Also I’m Orthodox Jewish, and if we have a professional that’s also Orthodox Jewish we, we take very seriously what they say. More so, I mean that’s how it is with the religion. So I had an Orthodox Jewish GP and he would tell me, ‘Yes, you should do this’ and, ‘No, you shouldn’t do that. But we did have, we did have it.

I knew what I was doing was absolutely right and I had no anxiety, I didn’t have any anxiety towards whether I was doing, what I was doing was right or wrong. It was the actual harm that I was, not, the actual harm that my baby thought that I was sort of causing them. And I know at 8 weeks old they probably have absolutely no concept of that whatsoever, they just know that something’s been stuck into their leg and it hurts. And then they sort of look to you to think, you know, ‘Why have you let that happen?’ And I think it was all that kind of sort of psychological, you know, ‘I’m here to protect you and bond with you and I’m your mother and theres no… you know, that kind of mother-child bond. And I think I was just most anxious about the fact that I was harming my child, they didn’t understand why it was happening. But then I suppose, you know, it’s something that they, I mean, you know, if I spoke to my daughter now she probably wouldn’t have any recollection of it whatsoever, so it’s probably just something that you just take on as a new mother because you’ve never experienced it before, you don’t know how you should feel but I just think, that I mean, that’s the anxiety of that, that was basically how I felt. It wasn’t the actual injection, what I was injecting in to her, that didn’t bother me at all because I knew what I was doing was right and it needed to be done and I’d been advised and you know, etc, etc. So that was the main reason behind it.

I suppose basically my gut instinct is that to me whatever evidence they come up with I think I will always find it impossible to accept that you can inject an eight-week old baby with a cocktail of diseases and vaccines against those diseases and not damage them. Because naturally the chances of anyone contracting all those diseases at the same time are, I would say, nil and the response that a body has towards a vaccine is different to the response it has towards the disease if it’s contracted naturally.

We did hesitate for the second batch of vaccinations. But because of the reaction that she had, she was seen by specialist, who reassured us and said that the reaction shes had was a strong, but not an abnormal reaction to the vaccines, and that he didn’t foresee that there would be any problem, with having her second and third batch of vaccinations. Therefore we decided to continue. And we had the second and the third batch and they were absolutely no problem.

Well I was afraid that the episode, after the first vaccination, was going to have permanent consequences. If it was just a, a fever and just being very tired because of the shock to the system, I don’t have a problem with that. But I was very concerned that there would be permanent consequences. Either because of having had a very high fever or because what I had witnessed was actually a reaction, which was demonstrating that something else was going on. So I was extremely concerned and, and I was not going to have the, we were not going to have her, have the second and third round of immunisations, unless we were reassured by a specialist, that it was perfectly fine, which we were and so we just went ahead.

And can you remember what the specialist said?

Yes. He said that, because this was just at the time, when the old vaccines were being phased out and replaced with the new vaccines. And he told us that what had happened was that, this type of reaction, did occur, not with very high frequency, but did occur with the old vaccine. There was a reaction to the pertussis vaccine, I believe. And this is why that, that vaccine was being phased out. And that therefore, we shouldn’t have any concern with, with the other vaccines because it was the new one, which didn’t carry that risk.

So I went back to my GP and he was extremely helpful. And he did give me the number of a paediatric immunologist. And the person I spoke to, called me back very quickly and he was, basically, he was able to provide me with enough information, to make what I feel was the right decision.

Firstly, because I’d found out the facts and I can’t remember who told me this, but the five-in-one injection, has only been around for a few months. But apparently, a very similar form have been used in Canada, for about seven years, so it wasn’t as if this was a new vaccination and no one really knew what was going, you know, what reaction it could have. It had been tried and tested somewhere else for sometime, although it wasn’t identical.

The other thing was the fact that which was key, was the fact that if you only have two out of the three sets, you really can’t, it’s not as if you can say, well that almost covers you, the third is just a safety check. You know, you cannot say that you’ve got sufficient cover after having two. So they always recommend that you have all three, if you possibly can. So that was really helpful.

And a third thing was, that he reiterated the fact that any severe reaction would happen very quickly. So I would actually be in hospital at that time.

One of the other things, I did try and find out when I first went to the hospital, whether or not, you are able to get, either go back to the three-in-one or have the jabs separately, because I assumed that you could just have one at a time. And I believe they’re not available anyway. So the choice is either you have all five-in-one, or you might be able to have it without the whooping cough, but I’m not even sure if you can do that now. So it wasn’t as if you could just have one, and even if you could have them separately as I think it was the specialist who told me, you could end up with five separate reactions. And obviously I didn’t want to put my daughter through that, and I thought that doesn’t really actually help at all because I’d be on tethered hooks for five times and eventually you know, will have the actual injection, which will cause the reaction. So I decided, my husband and I decided to go ahead with immunisation.

It’s difficult because ultimately I would rather go through a short-term worry for a long term peace of mind. And if in, I just can’t, if I decided not to immunise her then I think I would always be worried that she would pick something up, because you know, she might go travelling when shes eighteen. She goes to, we may not have these illnesses in this country, but she could go somewhere abroad and you don’t know what shes going to come in contact with and that’s why I think it’s quite, it’s quite a high-risk strategy not to immunise, unless you really feel very sure that something could you know, could harm your child. I think that you should, well, it’s up to the individual parent but I think it’s safer to immunise, myself.

But I just think that they’ve been immunising children for years and years and then this is the problem that you have in all these countries, isn’t it? With children dying. And I suppose decades ago in this country lots of children dying for illnesses that were very fortunate today they don’t die of. And I think you’re playing a bit fast and loose with, I don’t, I think it is very dangerous to stop immunising children. But I don’t think people appreciate how prevalent these illnesses were before. And how often children died, basically.

Mother’And so you do have to question, and my belief is quite strongly that not every child is affected in a negative way from immunisation but theres certainly a type of child that will be. I am absolutely convinced that with my son he would be the type that would be affected by vaccination and it’s purely because he has skin problems and maybe in later life he may get asthma, but I’m hoping having not had him vaccinated that he won’t have any other severe reactions.

And now you feel that you made the right decision?

Father’Don’t know. You’d like to think that you have but you can’t pat yourself on the back because you don’t know what’s around the corner. All I know is that our children have illnesses and they get over them and they look healthy, they play well, they sleep well and our daughter who’s six, is the youngest but one in her class and shes the tallest in the class. So I personally think her growth hasn’t been inhibited by any foreign bodies and so on. Whether, because were not excessively tall parents so where is she getting that from? Maybe she hasn’t had that setback that the immune system’s had throughout her life. That’s what I think, I could be completely wrong, I don’t know.

Mother’They are happy and healthy children and you never know whether you’ve made a right decision with regards to immunisation it, I don’t know exactly what would have happened had I had the children immunised. I mean they could have been exactly how they are now we don’t know for sure how they would have turned out anyway, but from our point of view certainly were fairly convinced that it’s been the right decision so far for our children.

I strongly feel that my daughter had a worse childhood through having them. And I can’t be absolutely sure, but she did suffer a lot as I’ve said before with ear infections and bladder infections. And in fact when she was 20 months she actually contracted pneumonia and was very poorly in hospital. And we, you, we just couldn’t be sure that, although we couldn’t link it directly obviously with being immunised, her immune system just did seem very weak and very poor. Whereas with my sons as I’ve said they had, perhaps even one of them had measles. And certainly my middle son had an ear infection last week and within two days he was actually back up on his feet. We had no question that we were going to give him antibiotics. And he had homeopathic remedies and was much, much stronger. And we feel again that his immune system hasn’t been weakened and we feel that it stays strong and it can be strengthened by, you know, by other means and actually keeping them stronger. So it hasn’t, doesn’t necessarily have day-to-day implications but we feel happier that the boys react better, their own bodies react better.