Immunization and Babies

There's lots to think about when considering immunization for your baby. What to immunize them for, and what age to do it.

Today our baby was immunized for the first time. He is three months old. We vaccinated him with DTPa-IPV (Infanrix-IPV), 7xPCV (Prevenar), and Hib (Hiberix). We had chosen not to get the Hep. B. vaccine after a careful analysis of the adverse event
rates vs the incidence of the disease. For DTPa, Pneumococcal, Polio and Hib the safer course of action is on average to get vaccinated - the diseases are either dangerous or common enough to outweigh the vaccine risk (all vaccines have some risks associated with them).

About two hours after the vaccine, it was just him and me in the house. He had screamed a great deal for about half an hour after the vaccination, but now he was quiet down, and even smiled and laughed before falling asleep. Because I wanted to make it up to him, I put him on my chest to go to sleep. We lay on the bed, Wagner's Parcifel playing on the radio.

It's wonderful having a baby asleep on your chest. They make the cutest snuffling and snorting sounds while they sleep, pucker their lips as if they are dreaming of sucking at the breast, and massage your skin lightly with their small hands. We'd been lying for about half an hour and I had started to day dream. Then it occurred to me that something was quite wrong.

Baby was quiet. His back wasn't rising and falling as he breathed, and I could no longer hear his breathing, his mouth only twenty centrimetres from my ear. The thought that he might be dead slipped across my mind but I brushed it away. I picked up his arm - it was floppy. Babies often go floppy when they sleep, but if you pick up their arm you get a response, such as curling of the fingers.

I picked up his arm and let it drop again. Still no response. I wiggled his legs. They were floppy to. I tipped my chin forward and listened harder, in case he was breathing quietly, but he was not. I put my hard on his back, but there was no movement there either. I felt a wave of shock rise up through my belly and ricochet out across my torso, my limbs, my fingers and toes. At once I felt so incredibly light, yet also as if I was sinking into a cold bottomless lake. My baby was dead?

I picked him up off my chest and shook him lightly. After a few more seconds, he roused, and started breathing again. Colour returned to his face.

The Infanrix-IPV datasheet contains the following statement:

"Very rare allergic reactions, including anaphylactoid reactions, have been reported following vaccination with DTPa containing vaccines.

"Extremely rare cases of collapse or shock-like state (hypotonic-hyporesponsiveness episode) and convulsions within 2 to 3 days of vaccination have been reported for infants receiving pertussis containing vaccines. All the subjects recovered totally without sequelae."

He had suffered a hypotonic-hyporesponsiveness episode. He may have more of these over the next couple days. We rang the GP, so that he could report it. GPs are meant to report adverse events following immunization to the Australian Drug Reactions Advisory Committee.

Our GP said he will not report it, because hypertonia is not listed as a side-effect on the packet of any of the vaccines that he administered. If the baby did not go blue, there is no need to worry. It is quite possible that hypotonic-hyporesponsiveness is not an extremely rare event, it's just that it's extremely rare for a GP to report it.

How can ADRAC give the right advice on the safety or otherwise of vaccines for babies if GPs grossly under-report these adverse reactions? How was your baby after being immunized?