Interview 01

Brief Outline: For DTP/IPV/Hib' Followed the recommendations of health professionals. Reading newspapers and magazine articles, talking to their GP, a private doctor and to friends helped her to make her decision about MMR.

Background: At time of interview' married, two children, aged 2.5 yrs (daughter) and second child due. Parent's occupation' Mother- Administrator, Father- Company Secretary. Ethnic background' White-British.

It's important to help to eradicate infectious diseases.

I wouldn't have any hesitation in sort of saying to people that they have to get it done, because the risk of what your child could potentially catch instead of the sort of, you know, the two, three days of possible sort of fever and, and discomfort, it just outweighs it ten times over. So I mean I would, even though you have your concerns, and I mean I was a completely neurotic, you know, new mum, but I think generally long-term view it would be really unwise not to immunise your child. You have to, I mean we've all been immunised, you know, and you have to sort of, it, I mean it helps in terms of the, the sort of the environment you're in just to keep everything as safe as possible and disease free.

She talked to three or four different doctors before deciding to give her daughter MMR.

And then I think when I came to the booster one at 8 months that was fine, I just went ahead and did it. But I did start to worry after that when the 13 months sort of started to come up that the MMR thing, you know, this whole big debate. So I think basically I did a lot of reading, I spoke to a lot of people, spoke to about three or four different doctors, and I was very, very tempted to go for the single jabs, and I was prepared to pay the money because I was just too, you know, too concerned about the, the link with autism. But then, I don't know what it was, it was almost as if there was something inside me that suddenly just decided to get, to get her done. 

And I'd spoken to a very good private doctor who'd convinced me that actually there was nothing wrong and he would go ahead and do the triple jab. So I went ahead and I booked her in and I got the, the injection done. And then literally the next afternoon at nursery there was a mumps, or was it, no, there was a measles case. And, and I don't know why I, but I just, you know, there was obviously something inside me that I had to do it that particular day, and then the next day this measles case came up. And, and she was, you know, she was fine, she hasn't, she hasn't got it. And so far she hasn't shown any strange behaviour, things towards the, the MMR. So I think in the end I was quite happy that I made the decision because, you know, having measles obviously is ten times worse.
 

When there was a measles outbreak in her daughter's nursery she was relieved to have finally...

And then the next day when I found out and I'd gone to pick her up from the nursery and they said, 'Has my daughter had MMR injection?' and I said, 'Yes, actually she's had it two days ago' they were a bit like, 'Okay, well...'. I think you needed to allow 48 hours or something for the injection to actually kick in, I think. So there was a slight concern about that, but I was also very relieved that, you know, she'd had the injection and the chance of her contracting measles was probably fairly diminished from that. So I was incredibly relieved and quite sort of freaked out that I had actually sort of made the decision and suddenly, because if I hadn't have had her, you know, immunised I would have been really, really panicking. 
 

She was anxious that her daughter might be upset having the injection but felt it was important...

I knew what I was doing was absolutely right and I had no anxiety, I didn't have any anxiety towards whether I was doing, what I was doing was right or wrong. It was the actual harm that I was, not, the actual harm that my baby thought that I was sort of causing them. And I know at 8 weeks old they probably have absolutely no concept of that whatsoever, they just know that something's been stuck into their leg and it hurts. And then they sort of look to you to think, you know, 'Why have you let that happen?' And I think it was all that kind of sort of psychological, you know, 'I'm here to protect you and bond with you and I'm your mother and there's no...' you know, that kind of mother-child bond. And I think I was just most anxious about the fact that I was harming my child, they didn't understand why it was happening. But then I suppose, you know, it's something that they, I mean, you know, if I spoke to my daughter now she probably wouldn't have any recollection of it whatsoever, so it's probably just something that you just take on as a new mother because you've never experienced it before, you don't know how you should feel but I just think, that I mean, that's the anxiety of that, that was basically how I felt. It wasn't the actual injection, what I was injecting in to her, that didn't bother me at all because I knew what I was doing was right and it needed to be done and I'd been advised and you know, etc, etc. So that was the main reason behind it. 
 

She considered single vaccines but was glad she hadn't chosen them when there was a measles...

One of my friends actually has autism in her family, and she has a son, and I think she was sort of umming and ahhing and in the end she went for the triple jab as well. And most of what everyone said was, 'Go for the triple jab' because getting the single ones a) are expensive, they're very, very difficult to get hold of, and then it's even harder to try and find a doctor who will actually administer them. And I think you have to do two for each, for each disease and then you have to leave them six weeks apart or something, so all the time that you're delaying they're running the risk. And if I'd done that and we had the nursery situation when measles came up, you know, it just wasn't worth it. So I think in the end I just decided, after talking to friends and, and all the research I did, it just made sense to, you know, to not put her in any more harm and to just go ahead and do it. So I did.