I think my MIL is going to lie about getting tdap vaccine

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You know, none of the obs in the practice I went to even said anything to me about tdap.

so?

You'd think if this was that serious of a risk they'd at least *mention* it.

The world has gone crazy with its inability to asses risk.

These same mothers who are terrified of pertussis will take their babies for countless car trips in their first three months of life, even though thousands of babies are killed each year in car accidents. These same mothers will circumcise their sons, even though one hundred baby boys die each year due to complications of circumcision. Many, many unusual and freakish things are more likely to kill a newborn than pertussis. The risk of even contracting the disease is miniscule, and the risk of dying from it is a tiny fraction of that.

Out of millions of babies born in the country each year, 10-15 die of Pertussis. Even with a 100% vaccination rate, this would still happen as Pertussis can be (and often is) transmitted and contracted entirely through vaccinated populations. If you knew about all the things that can and do kill 10 babies a year, I think all of you would go clinically insane. There are bigger battles to fight here, folks.

If you think so rationally about how small the risk is, then what is these people's justification for not getting the shot? The baby's risk of contracting pertussis may be low, but the risk of anything bad happening to the person who gets vaccinated is even lower. So it should really be a non-issue, and people who want to see a newborn should pay the new mother respect and just get the shot if she requests it. They'll increase herd immunity in the process and thus fulfill a public service as well.

This is so bizarre. Why doesn't everybody just respect everybody else? If you are not sick and have washed your hands, there is virtually zero risk that you will pass on any illness to a new baby.

Because what's at issue here is the risk for a newborn who can't yet say whether he/she wants to take a risk with you. And then there is the peace of mind of the new mother. To any sensible person, those two should trump anyone's reluctance to get vaccinated, for which there really is no rational justification at all. (Obviously, if someone has a medical condition that makes a vaccine risky for them, it's a different story.)

Obviously to you, sensible is whatever you say sensible is. That's fine, but not everyone agrees that this is a risk worth bothering anyone else over. There are literally millions of mothers who don't subscribe to your point of view and whose children make it out of infancy. My parents are physicians and I never even heard of this until this thread! My ob said nothing about getting my family to take tdap, either.

Of course not everyone agrees with me. The fact that there are millions of people who are wary of and not very knowledgeable about vaccines doesn't make their position better founded. And obviously most babies will survive even if their family isn't vaccinated. As long as herd immunity overall is kept up, they can be free riders in an environment where the risk of infection with vaccine-preventable diseases is low. And not that it matters, but my parents are physicians, too (in Europe), and I didn't hear about this issue from them either - why should I and what does that prove? They aren't the ones managing my care. But when I asked them to get their shots before visiting, they didn't bat an eye and complied.

I don't think herd immunity is really helping with pertussis outbreaks pp. Most people have been vaccinated at some point, but the vaccine is a lot weaker than its previous form. So that public policy argument doesn't really fly. The vast majority of parents accept vaccination, it's some people with health issues and others with fringe views who do not. Once again, just because you say this is a risk we should worry about, that doesn't actually mean that it is. It means that you have decided it is.

If herd immunity doesn't protect from pertussis outbreaks, then it is even more important that everyone gets their boosters. And it's not me who has decided that this is a risk that warrants encouraging vaccination - the CDC and the medical community have done that for me, and are recommending the vaccine strongly for all close contact persons of infants.