I never thought about this until tonight, and then realized this could be a deciding factor in whether I accept a job or not... I have been offered a position in a Med/Tele unit in our county teaching hospital. It's a great place to work.. Magnet status, etc. However, our clientele is a lot of illegal immigrants, homeless, underserved population.. Which means most are probably not vaccinated against harmful diseases.
I have a 9 month old baby who is on a delayed vaccine schedule, and will only be receiving select vaccines against the most serious things, due to reactions she had to certain shots, and because of our own beliefs & comfort level with vaccines. I'm worried that if I'm working in an environment and with a population like this where I'm constantly exposed to serious illnesses and disease... can I bring these home with my and expose my baby as well?? Even though I'm vaccinated, I assume I could still carry something home that my antibodies are fighting off.
I just want to thank those who gave me good advice to the question I asked, which had nothing to do with vaccinating or my parenting abilities.. but particularly, thank you to those who were respectful about it. It makes me sad to see how many nurses out there send such negative vibes to other nurses.
But I really do appreciate the helpful answers by the few who understood and appreciated my situation. Thanks very much!
Unhealthier by what definition? You mean that the daycare kids (breastfed or formula fed) who get exposed to all the regular childhood diseases and therefore get tons of colds and flus and rotavirus and so on are considered less healthy than the children who are kept at home and not exposed to all those diseases? Because I seriously beg to differ. One's immune system is only built up by being exposed to diseases regardless of age and whether or not they are breastfed. So the kids who are kept at home just get to go through all the colds and flus and rotavirus and so on once they start kindergarten. Which is fine, but please, it doesn't make them "healthier".
Sorry to get on my soapbox but that's an argument that really sets me off (obviously).
I'm sure you wouldn't argue with me when I say breastfed babies are healthier. Yes, getting colds and different viruses help to build the immune system and can help give the immune system "practice" in order to effectively fight off the bigger guns (like cancer) later down the road. My kids are homeschooled and stay at home and yet they still get sick several times a year, but so far, have had no trouble recovering and have only needed antibiotics once, each (my oldest is 11.) The problem with vaccines is that they do bypass normal body mechanisms and because of this have been implicated in various autoimmune diseases such as cancer and allergies.
This is totally false. Clean living conditions was a major factor in infectious disease control. Did any of you guys attend the lecture about Florence Nightingale? "The sanitary, nutrition, and basic facilities in the battlefield hospitals were poor at best. Evenutally she was given the task to organize and improve the quality of the sanitation facilities. As a result, the mortality rate at the Barracks Hospital in Scutari, Turkey was reduced from 42.8% to 2.2% in 6 months." This is from my Fundamentals book.
From my Microbiology book: "Scientists have developed vaccines to prevent infections and drugs to treat them once they have become established. Moreover, we have made dramatic progress in preventing infectious disease through public hygiene, such as water treatment, sewage treatment, and better living conditions." (My bold and italics.)
Unhealthier by what definition? You mean that the daycare kids (breastfed or formula fed) who get exposed to all the regular childhood diseases and therefore get tons of colds and flus and rotavirus and so on are considered less healthy than the children who are kept at home and not exposed to all those diseases? Because I seriously beg to differ. One's immune system is only built up by being exposed to diseases regardless of age and whether or not they are breastfed. So the kids who are kept at home just get to go through all the colds and flus and rotavirus and so on once they start kindergarten. Which is fine, but please, it doesn't make them "healthier".
Sorry to get on my soapbox but that's an argument that really sets me off (obviously).
My kids are unvaxed, were breastfed, homeschooled until the beginning of last school year and were always perfectly healthy and rarely got anything. They've always been around other kids though. They started public school this past fall, are still unvaxed, and still hardly ever get sick.
They are that way because 1)their immune systems are still intact and 2)we let them ride it out on the rare occasion that they do come down with something. We leave the Tylenol on the shelf and let their immune system do what it's supposed to do. With the 90 billion vaccines we inject kids with and with parents rushing to pour Tylenol down their throats the second their body heats up at all (there's a reason for the body heating up) I have to wonder why we bother having immune systems at all.
My advice to the OP is to keep doing what you are doing. You've allowed your kids immune systems to grow and mature. I agree with the poster who said think about what you may bring home and how it's transmitted and go from there.
Yesterday my 9-yr-old brought home a packet of flu vaccine info from his public elementary school. They are offering nasal spray or the shot, to be given sometime in October or November. I get the flu shot every year at work.
After reading and talking with him, we decided he would get the shot. Why?
1) He had the flu two years ago and was sick enough that I brought him to my workplace for treatment (the ED where I work.) He got it from DH who brought it home from an out-of-state flight. I only experienced about 6 hours of feeling crappy thanks to my flu shot, and DS was sick for two weeks.
2) Shot was chosen due to my work in the ED; don't need immunocompromised pts to get any version of the "attenuated virus" from me, and DS wants to reduce his chances of any type of symptoms from the spray.
Now when school started this year the PMD offered a couple of vaccines recommended for school-age kids; I said no, because I felt he did not need them (can't remember what they were exactly; that's how much interest I had in them.)
As for bringing stuff home from work, I can say in all these years (25) I have occasionally caught stuff myself (usually URI or the local GI bug,) but thankfully not shared it with the family. Rarely when I get home after a particularly poopy or vomity shift (YKWIM!!) I shower, but otherwise it is clothes in the hamper, wash up again like I did at work, go to bed.
But I have been known to refuse recommended treatments if I cannot be convinced that me or my family member has to have it.
I have worked with respiratory patients in hospitals for 21 out of 23 years. I have 3 healthy teenage girls, never caught more than the average cold like everyone else.
That being said, using your PPE properly is a must with droplet precautions-herpes zoster in particular with babies (you'll give them the chicken pox). And remember that C-Diff is a spore and can survive on surfaces for up to 45 days-wash your hands!
My kids have never caught any of the MRSA, VRE, psueudomonas, klebsiella, TB, C-Diff etc....that I have come into contact with at work.
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I just want to thank those who gave me good advice to the question I asked, which had nothing to do with vaccinating or my parenting abilities.. but particularly, thank you to those who were respectful about it. It makes me sad to see how many nurses out there send such negative vibes to other nurses.
But I really do appreciate the helpful answers by the few who understood and appreciated my situation. Thanks very much!