Child immunisation - Dr Miriam Stoppard tells us what she thinks

New Research Highlights Mums’ Anxiety Around Immunisation

The research, conducted on behalf of AstraZeneca, shows that 48% of mums worry about taking their child for routine immunizations, while a significant 43% believe immunizations affect the parents more than their child.

In recent research on attitudes towards immunization, mums commented: “My two year old has just had it done and I’m going ‘you’re making my baby poorly, I don’t like it” while another added “They don’t realize until thirty seconds later … they look at you … what have you done.”

Younger mums are particularly susceptible to immunization anxiety. Over half of younger mums worry about child immunizations, compared to just a third of mums aged over 45. Even more worryingly, 16% of younger mums have delayed vital immunizations due to concerns about pain, compared to just 6.7% of mums overall.

Dr Miriam Stoppard, commenting on the research, says “As a doctor I feel immunization to be vital but as a mother and grandmother I understand the distress and anxiety mums can experience during the immunization process. I am concerned that younger mums in particular seem to experience more anxiety around the health of their child and immunizations in particular, and call for more support and information to be made available to mums on ways to help deal with this potentially difficult situation.”

In this video Dr Miriam addresses whether parents should immunize their children, what fears parents have, whether they should worry about the pain of the prick and how parents can make the process less stressful for their child.