Weekend Round Up and Immunisations!

It has been an eventful weekend; it all started off well as we completed the first part of the garden on Saturday; however on Sunday after telling Ruby to be careful with car doors, I stupidly managed to trap my fingers in the car door whilst slamming it shut! I have never experienced pain like it and within minutes my hand was turning a variety of wonderful colours. I really did not want to go to hospital but as the pain was so great hubbie took me. To my surprise I've broken my finger; I can't believe it. It could take up to 6 weeks for it heal but I'm not going to let it stop me doing anything.

Anyway on to today's blog post; I would like to introduce one of my friends, Louise, who is a first time mother to a gorgeous boy called William. Louise kindly offered to write a post for me on immunisations and explains why she feels they are so very important:

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Louise and William

Hopefully you have all seen the news recently and know about the inevitable situation that Swansea is finding itself in.

Since November we have seen a steady increase of measles cases being reported over the last couple of months and in recent days we have seen the situation escalate to an epidemic, which as a Swansea resident and unprotected mother of an unprotected nearly 8 month old is incredibly scary.

We find ourselves as I mentioned earlier in an inevitable situation because of the frenzy caused by the media in 1998 due to a poorly researched report, discredited since 2000, which wrongly suggested a link between autism and the single MMR immunisation. For reasons unknown this has meant that the uptake of the MMR has been poor in this area since this time and now the prophecy of an epidemic caused by this has been realised.

I was told when pregnant that I needed to have my MMR jab at the earliest opportunity after having my son but it wasn't until two weeks ago when I read the headline that the number of measles cases had topped 400 that I contacted my health visitor to ask that as my son was 5 months off being immunised,

what the plan was for immunising the under 1's. I was told there was no plan but I could have mine (which i did) and would be called when my son could be immunised.

Thankfully I got the call last week and William was immunised so he is now covered. Since then the National news have taken up the story and all of Friday and Saturday's news were of the hundreds of people queuing to immunise themselves and their children. 1200 people were immunised in just one day and this got me thinking why when the risk of measles is so severe why it took so long for parents to protect their children.
Even though the Spector of the 98 report has been well and truly exorcised it still appears on a parent's radar as a worry. As a parent you don't want to put your child at risk but by denying them an immunisation because of a rubbished loose possibility that they could develop autism, would be socially and parentally irresponsible. No one knows what causes autism for sure but blaming a jab would be disrespectful to individuals with autism and their parents.

If you were born after 1970 there is a chance you aren't covered, even if you aren't sure, there is no harm in getting the MMR for piece of mind so please learn our lesson Merseyside and Swansea have already been hit by measles and it will come to a town near you if you don't get you and your children immunised.