HIB Vaccine?- should we????

[zachattack]

Our unvaxed 3 month old son is in daycare, gets 30% or so of feedings from nursing....
Doc is ok with us delaying most vaxs (which is why we picked him)
How common is HIB? advantges/disadvantages of vax vs. chance of him getting it???

[mamakah]

We decided against HIB because I was breastfeeding AND because I had never heard of the disease before. When I was little this vaccine didn't exist. Therefore noone I knew was immunized for it, and never in my 29 years of life have I heard of a case, met someone who had it, got sick from it, died from it. I know this is not the most scientific of reasons to decide against this shot, but it is what comforted us.
Does your LO get formula for the other feedings or do you express milk? I would think even with 3 breastfeedings a day that would be enough milk to protect your LO.

I figure, my mom never lost any sleep because I wasn't "protected" from HIB (she didn't even know what it was or that it existed) so I will not lose sleep that my son is not "protected" either.
ETA: I'm sorry, I misread your post and don't have any stats to offer.

[Marnica]

This was the only one I ever really considered and struggled with. ultimately decided against it. DS eneted daycare at 3 months as well. He is still BF and is now 17 months and I don't really worry much anymore. I asked my mom about HIB and she was like "what's that?' Most people in her generation have never heard of it. Even when it was "common" before the vaccine, it was uncommon KWIM? The vax has decreased the carriage of HIB so it really doesn't circulate much anymore anyway. There are HI types a,c,d,e, and f out there not to mention all of the untypeable strains. Do you worry about those as well? Probably not because there is no vaccine for those strains.

The HIB vax is "supposed" to be fairly well tolerated but Classen has done a bunch of studies that have linked this vax to diabetes. I actually know a mom whose little girl was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 15 months....scary. Also there is a mom on here Lollicup (maybe she will chime in) whose DD was diagnosed with viral menengitis after this vax. The vaccine lowers immunity significantly so other illnesses can take hold and become more opportunistic.

I am home now and my links to the studies are at work. if you are interested in them pm me and ill send them to you tomorrow.

[ZoeyZoo]

You'll find the most peds will have a pet vax that they will want you to consider. I have read on MDC everything from HIB to polio.

I'm in a different camp than many on MDC because I couldn't BF so my DD is in theory more at risk. What made me choose to decline this one center around two main pieces. Menengitis can be caused by both bacterial and viral strains. There are no vaxes for the viral strains. The bacterial vaxes cover very few (about 1/10th) of the bacterial strains. It is also a very rare disease in general (though can be quite severe).

HIB itself is only one of the strains that can lead to menengitis. Due to serotype replacement it isn't even the most likely bacterial strain to cause the disease now. I can't remember which strains overtook HIB but I have seen them mentioned in threads on this board.