Barbrae said:
Capsid - you said "This only applies to live vaccines (except polio) such as the MMR which establish a systemic infection and where the breastmilk antibodies can neutralise the vaccines in the virus. But this is why live vaccines are given after 12 months when breastmilk antibodies have declined."
Interesting, so breastmilk has no adverse effect on other vaccines? So, what you are saying is that if an infant were given a live vaccine and the mom was nursing the antibodies in the breastmilk would "fight" the infectious agent in the disease and therefore the infant would not develop it's own antibodies towards that disease and when mom stopped nursing it would be defenseless so to speak? Do I understand you right?
Yes and no so to speak.
First let me say the Pertussis presentation shows the highest risk for infants getting Pertussis infection is in the first few months of life. Clearly maternal antibody is not preventing disease. And if breast feeding were delivering protective antibody you would expect to see an increase in pertussis cases as children were weaned. Instead what you see is a decrease in cases that closely matches vaccine schedules, not increasing cases with dwindling maternal antibody.
I see from your posts that you are coming up with some personal hypotheses about how vaccines, mom and baby factors interact. While there is nothing wrong with that, those hypotheses have already been explored. It isn't that you are thinking of natural ways to deal with disease and the rest of us just automatically favor drugs.
There are many references that have been presented here that for some reason are not sufficient enough to convince people why we vaccinate. I suspect, some of them, like yourself, may be interpreting the information they are reading without a full understanding of what the data really says. Clearly you have a very good understanding, and you are reading a lot of material, but you have drawn some incorrect conclusions by applying what you are reading in a broader way than the research actually supports.
I suggest you start with a different approach to the information. The outcome you want to see in any research is, "Was disease prevented?" The outcome is not who gets what from whom, how many germs did you kill, what is the antibody level etc. Those are intermediary steps but one cannot guarantee they lead to less disease.
It isn't hard to look at the data showing what disease risks you can prevent with vaccinations. The risks posed by the vaccines is a tiny fraction of the risk posed by the diseases they prevent.
Back to the nursing and it's affect on live vaccines, and Capsid may answer as well but I think it never hurts to hear the information in different ways.
Maternal antibodies have some protective ability, that's obvious. But you cannot say, breastfeeding or not, which kids are protected, from which diseases, and until what age. If the antibodies were sufficient, then no breastfeeding kids would ever get infections the mom was immune to. But, that isn't the case.
When the decision was made to use 15 months, (and at least 12 months), to give MMRs it was based on a higher failure rate showing up in kids vaccinated before 12 months. The reason may have included many variables with residual maternal antibody being one likely possibility. During a measles outbreak, we sometimes recommend giving MMR vaccine at 6 months and revaccinating with 2 more doses on the regular schedule later. Because breastfeeding does not confer sufficient immunity to be reliable.
So again, you have to be careful drawing conclusions with some of this information.
I know it's been said before but if you want the best papers to read about vaccines, on the CDC web site, for every vaccine we use today, there is an extremely thorough evaluation in a document called the ACIP, (Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices), guideline. The vaccine risks, benefits and rationale for the recommendations are discussed in detail and completely referenced with the supporting data cited, (usually several hundred documents are cited). The ACIP Guidelines are also updated whenever new data or new issues are found.
There are also documents that address the questions such as why Hep B vaccine is still recommended at birth. I notice you mentioned you delayed your middle child's Hep B vaccine. These decisions are not made lightly. They are not made by vaccine companies. The CDC is probably one of the few government agencies that does not have a revolving door for corporate jobs.
