Baby Babble

Flu, not good; vaccines, a better idea

As the weather turns from warm to cold, health care officials are reminding us to get our children vaccinated against the flu bug. Even though last year’s vaccine was only 44 percent effective, the health department is assuring us that this year’s vaccine—made from three different strains of the bug—will be a much better match and should be more effective. (It’s not the health officials’ fault; the flu strain mutates each year. Vaccines are developed on a “best educated guess” scenario.) “Influenza spreads very easily, usually through contact with droplets from the nose.

“Influenza spreads very easily, usually through contact with droplets from the nose or throat of an infected person during coughing or sneezing,” said Dr. Craig Smith, MD, director of the Mount Rogers Health District. “It is sometimes difficult for children to remember to follow good health habits that can prevent the flu, such as frequent hand washing, covering a cough or sneeze with a tissue or sleeve, and avoiding touching eyes, nose and mouth. This is especially true for children who are in school or in daycare and share items and surfaces with other children.”

Health officials recommend the vaccine for children six months to 18 years of age, plus pregnant women and for those with weakened immune systems. And for those who are scared off by the needles, a nasal mist can be inhaled this year, but is effective only for those age two and older.

Will you get shots for your kids?

New 5-in-1 vaccination reduces the number of vaccinations!

Most moms would do anything to take away the pain caused by the number of shots their babies have to endure to keep up with pediatrician recommendations today. DTaP, Hib, MMR-- you name it, but now a new 5-in-1 shot, combining diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis), polio, and influenza type B vaccinations has been approved by the FDA. The shot would be administered in a four-dose series: at two, four, six, and between 15 and 18 months of age. This would reduce the number of shots given to infants and toddlers by up to one-third. The vaccination has been tested on over 5,000 children, and the side effects are nothing more than is typical with current vaccinations: fussiness, slight fever, redness and swelling at injection site.

This is good news for moms wanting to protect their babies from the pain of getting shots—and isn’t that all moms?!

Care to comment? Write us here using the "comments" button just below.

Flu shots for kids not high on parents' list of to-do's?

We had an interesting response to our mini-poll last week about new recommendations from the CDC that every child should get a flu vaccine every year, from age 6 months on up to 18 years.

The majority of Baby Babble readers said "No" they had not gotten their child (children) a flu shot this year and "No" they do not intend to follow through on the CDC recommendations to have them get shots every year.

We're curious here as to why parents would NOT want to increase the chances of their child not getting the flu.

Those of you who answered "No"--could you drop us a line here, using "comments" just below, and tell us your reasoning?

Those of you who answered "Yes"--what was your motivation? Why do you think flu shots are important? Click on down to "comments" then click through to enter your thoughts. 

Thank you!

Flu vaccines every year for every child? What do you think?

A federal advisory panel of the CDC has recommended that every child over the age of 6 months should get a flu vaccination every year, in a change from its past recommendation which was to recommend it for children up to age 5.  The change in recommendations is the result, the panel says, on agreeing that there would be two direct benefits to every child being vaccinated: 1) Parents and children will lose less productive time being sick or caring for the sick; 2) children will need to use fewer antibiotics because of complications from the flu. 

Additionally, the rest of us will be less likely to get sick.

What do you think of this recommendation? Would you make sure your child gets the shot every year from now until adulthood? Do you do it now?

A little shot in the arm has meant all the difference for public health

Some parents worry about vaccines for their children. They worry that they might hurt too much, or cause other, unknown problems down the line.  Time and again, the studies show there is nothing to worry about and, more importantly, vaccines have improved the overall health of the general public.  Here in the year 2007, it's hard for any parent to imagine a time when quarantine notices were hammered onto the doors of city houses, or when a child came home from school one day to learn that her playmate next door could no longer walk because of polio.  Today's parents have the luxury of worrying about a little, momentary pain for their child, as opposed to the lifelong disability or sudden death feared by parents not that long ago.

Since vaccines have been developed and the United States began recommending them for certain diseases, those diseases have been virtually eliminated in most cases. Now the Journal of the American Medical Association has taken a look just at what the last few years have meant, since 2005 when national vaccine recommendations for 13 diseases went into effect.  The results of their study? Since widespread use of a vaccine, the annual number of cases has fallen by:

• more than 99% for diphtheria, smallpox, polio, measles, and rubella (German measles)
• more than 90% for pertussis (whooping cough), mumps, and tetanus
• more than 80% for hepatitis A and B, and varicella (chickenpox)
• about 35% for infections caused by the Strep. pneumoniae bacterium.

Here's the AMA's summary of the full article:

"A greater than 92% decline in cases and a 99% or greater decline in deaths due to diseases prevented by vaccines recommended before 1980 were shown for diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, and tetanus. Endemic transmission of poliovirus and measles and rubella viruses has been eliminated in the United States; smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Declines were 80% or greater for cases and deaths of most vaccine-preventable diseases targeted since 1980 including hepatitis A, acute hepatitis B, Hib, and varicella. Declines in cases and deaths of invasive S pneumoniae were 34% and 25%, respectively." 

Take those tonsils, improve daytime behavior?

Back in the olden days, say the 1960s, seems like every kid on the block was getting his or her tonsils out. Then, that operation seemed to have given way to less invasive things, like the placement of "ear tubes" to help kids with chronic ear infections, and you hardly ever heard of a kid having his tonsils out.  Now, researchers are saying there is a still a vital role for the tonsilectomy to play--helping kids who have trouble breathing while they are sleeping. An "adenotonsillectomy"--the surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids--not only helps kids sleep better, but the result is an overall improvement in their daytime behaviors. Often, enlarged tonsils and/or adnoids are the cause of sleep problems such as sleep apnea, where the child starts and stops breathing throughout the night, or chronic snoring. Both can, understandably, result in daytime sleepiness and, well, crankiness.

Earlier studies had found that children who don't sleep well have higher incidences of behavioral problems such as attention-deficit hperactivity disorder (ADHD), deviance or just poor school performance.

According to the Reauters Health news report on the research "there was a correlation between the extent of children's nighttime breathing problems and their daytime behavioral problems. When their sleep disordered breathing symptoms improved after surgery, so too did their behavior."

Has your child experienced sleep disorders because of enlarged tonsils or adnoids? Experienced surgery? Write us with your story here. Click on "comments" just below.

Combo vaccine gets a shot in the arm

Sorry, we couldn't help it. These days, the average baby gets jabbed every couple of months—as many as 23 shots in the first year, according to the recommended immunization schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For some time, children have been getting a combination vaccination that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough). Now there's a vaccine that adds hepatitis B and poliovirus to the mix. Combining vaccines means fewer shots and, one hopes, happier babies.

But is the combination vaccine as effective as separate shots? Yes, according to the University of Rochester Medical Center. The university studied the five-way vaccine, as well as one that protects against 76 strains of Streptococcus pneumonia, and found they were just as effective as separate shots at protecting children against disease. The combination vaccines did tend to produce more swelling and pain at the injection sites, which isn't surprising, given that they involve introducing larger amounts of killed or modified germs for the body to deal with. That's a trade-off for receiving fewer shots and, of course, the immeasurable value of protection against serious diseases.

One caveat—the study was funded by a grant from GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, which makes the five-way vaccine. That doesn't necessarily mean the study is biased, but we're glad the researchers were upfront about it.

Will you go for the 5-way vaccine for your child?

A ban on cough syrup for kids under 6?

Hot on the heels of its warning about nursing moms and codeine comes a warning from the Food and Drug Administration about cough syrup for infants. Back in August, the FDA issued an advisory that warned parents not to give cough syrup to children under 2 years of age without a doctor's orders. Now a group of safety experts is urging the FDA to consider banning cough syrups completely for children under age 6.

According to the experts, the medicines haven't been proven effective in young children. Worse, decongestants were linked to the deaths of at least 54 children between 1969 and 2006, while 69 children died while taking antihistamines in the same period. And a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted between 2004 and 2005 found that over 1,500 children under age 2 suffered serious health problems after taking common cough and cold medicines.

There are hundreds of cough preparations on the market, and Americans spend billions of dollars on them every year, a good part of that for children's cough medicines. For now, they remain legal, but the experts will be meeting this month to study the products further and make recommendations to the FDA. In the meantime, it may be time to clean out the medicine cabinet and toss those out those bottles of "infant formula" syrup for safety sake.

Vaccinations--good for everybody

Vaccinating your toddlers against pneumococcal diseases is not only good for their health, but may also be good for their siblings and grandparents. It seems that since the year 2000, when youngsters between the ages of 2 and 5 began to get pneumonia and meningitis vaccines routinely, infections among adults age 50 or older have dropped. Another study has found that among day care enrolled children who were vaccinated, their younger siblings were sick less often. The theory is that the vaccinated children are carrying around fewer germs so that other vulnerable people--like older or younger family members-- are less likely to pick up the illness. [SOURCE: Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal; Journal of the American Medial Association]

Care to comment?

Newborn health screenings are becoming widespread public policy

Just in the last 3 years or so, experts have recommended that states require newborns to be tested for some 29 genetic disorders that could mean serious disability or illness, according to this report. Here's the list of disorders for which the March of Dimes would like every child screened.

Currently, nearly 90 percent of the babies born in this country are being tested--and that's good news for everybody.  As of June of this year, 40 states required testing for at least 20 of the disorders, while 13 states plus Washington D.C. required all of the tests.  Some states are lagging behind--Arkansas, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington.  Perhaps if you live in one of those states, it's time to put the pressure on your public policy makers? Or would a federal mandate make more sense?

Do you think this kind of testing is a good idea?  Is there any reason this shouldn't be done for everybody? Write us here, using the comment feature just below.