October Asthma Case Study
Asthma and baby vaccinations
"A young mother of a seven month old baby boy rang the asthma helpline quite distressed about having to make a decision about whether or not to allow her baby boy with asthma to have his routine infant immunisations."
My name is Lisa and my baby boy, Paul, is seven months old has asthma. Recently I have been trying to decide whether or not to have my baby vaccinated. I never had any vaccinations as a child and have been healthy all my life.
I recently read reports about the link between MMR and autism and having read that information, I decided againgt vaccinating Paul.
Case Study
After Paul was born my GP, Public Health Nurse and Practice Nurse all persuaded me that it would be in my son’s best interests to have the vaccinations, so with great reluctance I brought Paul to my GP’s surgery where he received his first round of vaccines aged 2 months(6:1 and PCV). From that day on I noticed that Paul never been as well as he was before the vaccine. He developed a wheezy chest and needed to be hospitalised twice. During this time I was told that it was very likely that Paul would develop asthma. I was devasted and despite the medical professionals reassuring me, I was convinced that it was the vaccinations that had caused Paul’s ill health. I called the Asthma Society Asthma Helpline with my concerns to seek advice.
Having told the Nurse my story, the Nurse explained that asthma is a very common inflammatory lung disease affecting 470,000 people in Ireland. The Nurse explained
at least one child in five will have ‘wheezing’ at some point during their early years. When a child is under the age of two, it can be very difficult to tell if the child definitely has asthma. Many children who suffer with “asthma like” symptoms at this early age will not go on to have asthma in later childhood, so doctors may not want to use the term ‘asthma’ at this stage.
The Nurse explained there are a number of different wheezing illnesses, including acute bronchiolitis, wheezy bronchitis, croup, as well as asthma, which can make a baby wheezy. These may or may not need treatment. Or they may continue to wheeze even after treatment. These children are sometimes known as ‘happy wheezers’.
For those children that go on to develop asthma, it can be very well controlled. Good asthma control involves appropriate medication, good education and a good understanding of the condition, asthma.
The nurse reassured me that there is no scientific evidence to support a link between vaccinations and asthma. Indeed she informed me that vaccination has been the single most effective method (after clean water) in reducing infant mortality worldwide. It has also significantly reduced the number of chest infections, morbidity and hospitalizations in children. In Ireland, the most recent vaccinations, Hib and PCV, have lowered the rate of pneumonia in children dramatically while the Men C vaccine has reduced the rate of Meningitis C by 90% . There is very weighty medical evidence to support vaccination for all children and particularly for children with chest conditions.
I also realised from speaking to the nurse that asthma is not a single cause condition, many factors come into play including family history, environmental factors, allergens and viral infections. In all likelihood, the very harsh winter could have been the reason that Paul became unwell, and it was not down to something I did or didn’t do.
The Nurse offered to me the Asthma Society information on “Asthma in Babies and Young Children” so I may read this and hopefully feel better able to cope if Paul does go on to develop asthma. She also actively encouraged her to go back to her Health Care Professional for further discussion and to re-consider my decisions regarding vaccinations.
*Name of Helpline caller has been changed to protect the Helpline caller's privacy. Photo featured is of an actor.
