To jab or not?

I have always thought of chicken pox as a mild childhood illness, maybe troublesome but never serious. So naturally I didn’t see a need to vaccinate M against it, even when her paediatrician recommended it when she turned one.

It’s interesting that we readily agreed to the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines which were both elective. I guess it’s because most of us have been through chicken pox and have not seen it turn serious.

But since M started on her group-based classes, I became a little more worried. She was interacting more with other kids and sharing toys was an easy way for infectious diseases to spread.

Also, there seem to be cases of chicken pox and HFMD (hand, foot and mouth disease) reported from time to time where she attends playgroup. The teachers usually inform the parents once a case is reported so we can check our kids before attending our next class.

Once, M’s teacher spotted a red bump on one of her fingers (which I didn’t notice beforehand) and politely told us to get clearance from a doctor before we could join the class. A boy in the same class had just been diagnosed with chicken pox. I did a check with some parents later and it seemed most have vaccinated their kids against chicken pox.

So even though I thought it was better for M to experience chicken pox and gain the immunity on her own, we finally decided to go ahead with the vaccination. We can now quite safely (no vaccination offers 100% protection) eliminate chicken pox as a cause of fever if she does get one, especially helpful in times like these with a looming swine flu pandemic.

So the final deal is we get some peace of mind while the doctors and pharmaceutical companies earn more money!