Nursing and mandatory vaccines.

[Summerlove1]

I know what you're going to say....So let me save you all of that time and sarcasm. I know that as nurses we have a responsibility to keep our patients safe from nosocomial infections. We've been convinced that all vaccines are safe, indeed necessary to prevent deadly illnesses, and the risks are extremely rare and usually only involve minor symptoms or averse reactions.

Here's what one of those adverse reactions looks like.

http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=937

Parents need to be well informed, because even if we have never personally seen or heard of them they do happen. Personally, I can speak from experience that doctors do NOT adequately inform new parents about the risks of vaccines. I was told by my baby's pediatrician that he didn't recommend that I wait/ space out my child's vaccination schedule, because Hep B is "everywhere", in the dirt, on the floor where baby could contract it by touching things and putting hands in his mouth.. Mind you at the time I was a nursing student and KNEW better. (Hep B is transmitted through blood/ bodily secretions, so unless my newborn was going to have sex or use IV drugs.. he could've waited.) Before you think of parents who decide to follow a more conservative schedule, or decide to refuse vaccinations altogether, as ignorant, paranoid, irresponsible fools. Consider this heartbreaking story of an otherwise healthy infant and hundreds a year like him.

[wish_me_luck, BSN, RN]

From what I understand, it is not babies having sex or shooting drugs. Of course they can't do that. It goes back to the mother not being honest about whether she has it. It is prophylaxis and if the mother is known to have Hep B., then the baby gets the vaccine and the immunoglobulin and the mom can nurse, if they want (Hep B is not known to be passed through breastmilk, but a baby can get it through the birthing process). I think ideally it is better to give the vaccine and immunoglobulin before nursing anyway.

It's kind of like when they do the ointment in the eyes as prophylaxis against gonorrhea and chlamydia.