avoiding daycare because of nonvax...need to avoid preschool, too?

[swl73]

We haven't given our 21 month old daughter any vaccines, and we made the choice to keep her out of daycare as one way of minimizing her relative risk of contracting something serious. (Along with breastfeeding.)

So, my question is - does the relative increased risk for nonvax kids in daycare then translate to a similar increased risk for nonvax kids with preschool? At what age does this become less of an issue? Des anyone know if Sears was weighed in on preschools? He makes the case for staying out of daycare if you don't vax but I don't think there was anything about preschool in his book...

I know that there are plenty of nonvax kids in daycare and preschool who do not contract anything serious...we're just trying to figure out relative risk and make informed decisions from there.

Thanks in advance!

[FernG]

Personally, I don't worry about it.

the flu - the vaccine hasn't been proven effective for children under 2. Some studies show an increase in hospitalizations for children who get the flu vaccine and then catch the flu.

pertusis - and she's into the age where it's more likely to be a pain in the butt than a danger

chicken pox - you probably want her to catch that, right?

rota virus - most will catch that several times and then have lifelong immunity, which is important for when your child is elderly. the poor vaccinated children are not likely to have life-long immunity

PCV bacterial infections - which statistically aren't likely to be serious anyway

Hib bacterial infections - unlikely and statistically aren't likely to be serious anyway

Hep A if you travel - sadly, i don't think it's circulating much in the US. it would be good for all of our kids to have the opportunity to get life-long immunity during the age when the symptoms are mild.

rubella - maybe, if you are lucky she can catch it, but it's likely to be so mild that you won't notice.

mumps - maybe if you go to Europe.

measles - less likely, but maybe if you go to Europe during an outbreak.

polio - even less likely, but maybe if you go to an endemic area in the 3rd world

Hep B - STD

HPV - STD

[EVC]

Dunno. I haven't read the Sears book, so I have no idea what he recommends.

My unvax'ed dd started daycare at 10 months old, and now at almost 4 years old is in pre-school. I have never felt that we were taking any health risks as a result

Personally I think that if you shelter a child from germs, it actually weakens their immune system and makes them more susceptible to infection. So I would actually say that early exposure to kiddie germs and illnesses (through daycare, pre-school, play groups, etc) would make for a much stronger immune system as the child gets older and reaches school age. If you aren't exposed to all those germs, your body never learns to defend itself against them.

I think there is actually some amount of anecdotal evidence that children who went to pre-school get sick less frequently in elementary school than children who did not. There is also a study about daycare kids being les likely to develop leukemia, which is attributed to the fact that they had early germ exposure which boosted their immune system.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that germs aren't necessarily something you want to totally avoid. It's good for kids to get exposed to them from time to time and a great way to do that is by being around other kids

[Gitti]

We just never put any faith in vaccines and therefore never even considered to avoid any human contact. My vax-free grandchildren have been involved in everything from the beginning, although not day care, but certainly plenty of kiddo-classes, and mom-baby get togethers.

One seems always healthy, never appears to get any symptoms and the other one gets everything but gets over it again. Both are healthy in their own way.

They have traveled to other countries from the time they were just 3 mo. old. No worry, no problems.

[KoalaMommy]

I sent my kids to daycare without vaxes. I had started some with DD1 but DD2 was vax-free for the 1st 6 months she was there. They were fine.

Honestly, if you're non-vax, are you going to isolate your child forever? When I was making my decision on this issue, I looked at the prevalence of each illness where I lived. All vaccine preventable illnesses must be reported to the CDC and they track them and publish the statistics state by state. When I was looking, pertussis was the most common, and in my state of 9 million people, there had been 3,000 cases the year before, odds that were in my favor.

Many childhood illnesses are actually worse the older you are when you get them, so better to get them young if you're going to get them. I'd send your child out into the world to get as much exposure as possible!

[Spectrolite]

Just a note to you, OP, that I've been in the same boat as you for a while- ie, 'timid' about human contact. As ridiculous as it seems to me when I think about it. Ever since I started my vax research i've been afraid of other people.
Really annoyed of myself but still not 100% comfortable with baby being around lots of other people. . ..

Sometimes I just wish i never poked my head into this controversy....but if it's mama intuition then there must be a reason, right?

[Emmeline II]

I've taken my partially vaxed and non-vaxed children everywhere. I don't think I've ever been to the children's museum without hearing at least 1 hacking cough and my dcn never came home with anything.

Dr. Sears isn't much different than any other ped who says that if you don't vaccinate, their health will be deficient and you need to shield them from the world.

Unless your child has particular health concerns I would not worry about keeping them from the world. What your child is most likely to catch at daycare/pre-school, there are no vaccinations for. And there is always the possibility that you, or her other contacts, will bring something home to her.

[vulturemom]

I don't keep my vax free kids out of day care, preschool, public school, church, malls, parks or any of the other places that full of people.

[peilover010202]

Well, personally, I think the risk is similar (daycare vs preschool.) I have a home daycare and my own children (who are non-vaxed) have been fine. Sure, 1 got rotavirus and it was a rough week for him (my 2yo, my 5yo never had any symptoms). We lived through it.

Both my kiddos are going/have gone to preschool. I guess I hadn't really thought about excluding them from anything.

[mamadelbosque]

My DS's are still too young for preschool, and I'm a SAHM so no daycare, but we don't avoid people at ALL. We just went to an indoor waterpark (Fort Rapids outside Columbus) on saturday, and DS1 (29 months) was playing in the water and having a blast with DH & I while MIL watched DS2 (2 weeks) ( at a table - when he wanted to nurse she'd flag one of us down and I'd go nurse him and then go back to swimming/playing. Twas a blast. I can't imagine limiting our activities cause' we don't vax... I think if I thought I had to watch being around lots of other people if we weren't vaxing, I'd seriously consider vaxing... cause' man, lifes too short to be scared of diseases!!

[organicmommy05]

My unvaxed child has been going to daycare since 3 months. I bf for 23 months and she has yet to "catch" anything other then the common cold and a couple of stomach viruses. She is almost 4.

[zinemama]

It never even occurred to me to keep my unvaxed child out of preschool.

If you're going to have that much concern about regular contact with other kids, seems like you might as well vax.

[swl73]

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to my original post. Let me clarify:

In general, we are not keeping our daughter away from other people, or other children. We have lots of playgroups, and a music class. We do lots of things in the community. I am talking specifically about daycare. It's well established that *daycare* is a specific risk factor for little ones when it comes to illnesses, both the ones there are vaccines for, and the ones there are no vaccines for.

We're very comfortable with our decision not to vax. Not because we think that vaccines don't often work (they often do) and not because we don't think some of the illnesses are a big deal (some of the illnesses aren't, but some certainly are - some can be debilitating or fatal). We're comfortable with our decision because after we educated ourselves extensively on the subject (in terms of the specific risks and benefit of each vaccine compared to the illness it is supposed to offer protection for) in each case, we found that the risks outweighed the potential benefit, when considering how common or rare the illness was, how likely the side effects were, how much protection against the illness was offered by extended breastfeeding and staying out of daycare.

We read 2 books on the subject: Dr Sears’ “The Vaccine Book”, and Randall Neustaedter’s “The Vaccine Guide”. Sears’ book has a somewhat pro-vaccine bent, and Neustaedter’s book has a somewhat anti-vaccine bent, but overall, both books gave very thorough and objective information so that readers can make informed choices. While anectodal evidence can be encouraging and interesting, for an issue like this, we’re really looking for more objective information. If you’re looking for a safe car, you want to look at the research and go with the statistics. The fact that your neighbor may have a particular car that held up well in an accident is nice, but if you really want a safe car you have to look at the trends over a much larger sample size. That’s what we’re looking for here in terms of vaccinations.

The vaccine issue is definitely not a black and white issue. There can be good reasons to vaccinate and good reasons not to vaccinate. I think it’s important for people on both sides of the debate to really be educated on the facts. One thing that really annoys me is those pro-vax advertisements showing a baby and saying something like, “Trust me Mom, it won’t hurt me that much.” Implying that the reason parents would choose not to vaccinate is because the shot will hurt for a moment! It seems there can be misinformation on both sides. The pro-vax side tends to downplay the risks of vaccines, and overblow some of the illnesses both in terms of risk and the severity. Some people on the anti-vax side sometimes downplay the severity of the illnesses that can be prevented by vaccines, or use a one-size-fits-all approach rather than looking at a specific child’s risk factors depending on her situation. (For example, if for some reason I had been unable to breastfeed, and if our daughter was also in daycare, we would have probably selectively vaccinated her.)

Anyway, if you’re still with me through this long post, thanks for reading. And thanks again to all who took the time to respond to my original post.

[FernG]

Thanks for such a thoughtful reply! I hope lots of lurkers get to read it.

[swl73]

Thanks, Fern G!

For anyone who is interested, I e-mailed Dr. Sears today (author of The Vaccine Book) to ask him about whether preschool carries a similar risk factor as daycare, and he already responded. His response was, "Once an unvaxed child is two, I think the disease risk is low enough that you can go about life as normal." Just thought I would pass that along for anyone who might be interested...