Recently, I received many messages from mothers with eczema children asking if they should vaccinate their children. The worry is understandable as eczema involves the child’s immune system and mothers worry that vaccinations can somehow damage their child’s immunity. Claims from other parents about their child getting eczema after immunization also adds to the scare.
I just want to emphasize again that vaccines (including MMR) do not cause eczema.
There are some cases in certain children, although quite rare, where their eczema flared up after vaccination. Doctors or pediatrician giving the vaccination to an eczema child should warn parents of this possibility. Children who have a severe allergy to egg can be given the MMR vaccine as the attenuated MMR viruses are grown on cultures of chick embryo fibroblasts and not on egg white or yolk. If you do have concerns about your child’s egg allergy, do talk to your doctor about this.
There are many different studies that have been conducted studying the link between vaccines and eczema and I will not go into detail into these. One should be able to get this information from the many scientific papers published and reviewed on this subject matter. To date, there is no conclusive evidence that supports the link between vaccines and eczema.
In my opinion, by choosing not to vaccinate your eczema child, you are leaving her vulnerable to diseases. As I see it, vaccination isn’t an all or nothing decision. Should your child have severe allergic or eczema conditions, you can opt to delay vaccinating your child until his condition has stabilized.
As a mother of an eczema child myself, I get very distressed when I hear of other parents advocating other parents not to vaccinate as well based on their false belief that vaccinations cause eczema or exacerbate the eczema conditions.
When this happens, it leaves our young children, the elderly and the immunocompromised to become vulnerable to infectious diseases, which can cause severe complications and even fatalities.
I strongly believe that vaccines play a critical role in limiting or eradicating many very serious infectious diseases. As parents, it is our responsibility to protect our children from these vaccine-preventable diseases. So, let us make the decision to vaccinate based on rational reasoning and not based on fear and false beliefs.
