Help me decide! Please! (HIB)

[American Beauty]

I'm having such a hard time deciding on wheather to give Elijah (one years old, no vaccines) the HIB shot or not. I was at the doctors this moring and couldn't bring myself to do it. This is the second time I've backed down They told me if I brought him back before 4pm, they would wave the additional co-pay.
why is this so hard for me?
Does anyone know a child who has had an adverse reaction to the HIB?
I've also heard about a link to diabetes and eczema.
Any ifno would be great.


P.S. this is lil' love

[suschi]

When the vaccine first came out, it was only being recommended for children in day care. The stay at home breastfed infant is not at high risk. More money is to be made by all babies getting the shot, however, it is still not required for Kindergarten entry in many states, only daycare/preschool.

Have you requested a copy of the vaccine insert from your doc? Read that first before making a decision one way or the other.

On a personal note, my 4rd child suffered many problems after his 3rd round of vax, that included DPTH. My fifth baby, who is now 13 months, is unvaccinated.

Will getting this vacicne make your child more susceptible to other things?

There are too many unknowns to give you a definite answer, not even your dr would be able to answer the possible consequences of getting the vaccine vs not getting it.

The numbers they use to tell you how prevalant hib was before the vaccine are bogus because hib was not nationally notifiable until this vaccine had been out several years.


Christine

[Quirky]

I would not rush into something you're not sure of just because they'll waive the co-pay if you go do it before 4 p.m. Even if your co-pay is $50 or something high like that, that is a small price to pay for peace of mind knowing that you're confident in your decision to give the vax or not.

You should definitely do some research on this vax. Is your baby in daycare? Is he breastfed? What are his real risks of contracting meningitis?

This board is a great place to start your research; check out the archives at the top. Unfortunately you can't search for a word of 3 letters or less like HIB, but if you run a search for meningitis you will come up with some good hits.

Don't rush into anything. It's just not worth it.

[Tracy]

I nursed my son until he was 19 months.
He was not in daycare...but having said that...there were no reported cases of hib in Los Angeles County the last couple years (ten million people).
And of those ten million people in particular small babies, many, many don't get vaxed because they are friom poor families who either don't have the money for the vaxes or the time to take the children to clinics/doctors and many are in some very, very budget day cares...not great situations....and yet still no hib.

we skipped it.

this thread has some other threads in it that will help with your research.

and just want to echo...your gut is more expensive than the co-pay. you need more time, inmho..

good luck on your research.

http://mothering.com/discussions/sho...threadid=89698

[American Beauty]

Thanks Suschi and Jane for your answers.
I did get a copy of the insert for my dh and I to look over.
He is not in daycare but he does have an older brother who is in 2nd grade at a public school.
He was breastfed until a little over a year old, but weaned himself
I would never have thought that possible!

I did read through the archives and I'm about to do a search.
Thanks!

[American Beauty]

Trabot, we must have been posting at the same time! thank you also!

[suschi]

Just wanted to add, my youngest also has siblings in public school, 16 yr old in 11th grade, and an 8 yr old in 3rd grade.

This vaccine wasn't even around when my children born in 1984 and 1987 were getting shots. When my 3rd child was born in 1995, the doc gave me a hand typed sheet about the Hib vaccine, (I guess the CDC hadn't formulated their VIS yet) and as I read about those being recommended for the shot, I wondered why they wanted to give it to my baby who was not in daycare when the hand typed sheet specifically mentioned that group as being more at risk.

Christine

[iris0110]

I just wanted to add that this vacine is mostly recomended for children under 15 months. So in three months you child will be outside of the group most at risk from hib. I would skip it unless you plan on sending him to daycare in the next three months. Why run the risk of having an adverse reaction if you don't need to?

[American Beauty]

Thnaks all, we didn't go back and we've decided to postpone it for the moment.
Thanks!