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• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 37 >> Acknowledge and explain all the risks involved with immunisations, rather than dismiss parent's concerns.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of the health professionals. For MMR: Gathered information from the media, and talked to friends who were doctors. His own experience of working with children with learning difficulties informed their decision.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 3-4 years >> Interview 28 >> It is better to give a professional opinion and explain on what evidence the opinion has been based, rather than just give out the government line.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR: Talked to friends, her father who is a doctor, family friends who were doctors, and alternative practitioners. Gathered some information from the media. Talked to their GP about her daughter's egg allergy.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age under 1 >> Interview 14 >> Be honest about the reasons behind some of the advice given.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Found it most useful to talk to friends who had already made decisions about their children's immunisations. Took on board recommendations of health professionals.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age under 1 >> Interview 05 >> Find out what parents' concerns are and address them.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Information and advice from her brother, who works for a medical journal, experience of other children in the family being immunised with no ill effects, belief that some media reports were sensationalised and talking to the practice nurse helped her to make a decision.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 25 >> Recognise that the MMR decision is a difficult one for many parents.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR: Talked to friends who were doctors. Used the Internet to search for information. Were influenced by the prime minister's response to questioning about immunisation decisions for his son.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age under 1 >> Interview 10 >> Her personal belief is that the risk of the diseases were less than the potential risks of immunisation.

For DTP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals for her first child. For further immunisations: Read leaflets given to her by her homeopath, read books and talked to her health visitor and GP. Gathered some information from the media but was aware that it may be biased to a specific perspective.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 31 >> Decided it was a safer gamble to give her son the MMR vaccine than to not have him immunised.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR: Talked to her GP and to her hospital consultant. Read information in newspapers and on the Internet. Talked to friends and investigated single vaccines. A friend in the USA helped her to make a final decision.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 41 >> Believes the media misrepresented the level of risk associated with MMR.

For all immunisations: Her experience of working in Public Health informed her decisions about immunisations. She believed much of the information from the media to be inaccurate and biased.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 36 >> Didn't believe MMR caused autism and believed immunisations could protect her child from infectious diseases.

For all immunisations: Her experience of working in a Child Health department helped her to make her decisions. Her midwife talked to her and gave her information leaflets, which also helped.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 22 >> Believed the risk of the diseases and complications of the disease to be a greater risk than the very small risk associated with the vaccines.

For all immunisations: Her medical training helped her to make immunisation decisions for her son.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 12 >> Be aware that different information sources have different agendas.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals for their son. For MMR and immunisations for their daughter: Conducted an extensive review of the literature and scientific studies using the Internet and talked to their GP and health visitor.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 12 >> Parents need to weigh up the risk of potential side effects of the immunisation versus the risk of their child catching the disease or having complica

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals for their son. For MMR and immunisations for their daughter: Conducted an extensive review of the literature and scientific studies using the Internet and talked to their GP and health visitor.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 35 >> Believed the risk of the diseases and complications of the disease to be a greater risk than the very small risk associated with the vaccines.

For all immunisations: Her medical training and her experience of growing up in a third world country helped her to make decisions about her daughter's immunisations.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 01 >> When there was a measles outbreak in her daughter's nursery she was relieved to have finally decided to get her MMR done.

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.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 40 >> Believed the risk of a side effect from MMR was small and she didn't want her son to be ill when it could be prevented.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Information in the media influenced her decision. For MMR: Talking with friends who had children was helpful. Gathered information from the newspapers and the Internet.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 25 >> Chose a clinic in Harley Street to give her daughter single vaccines because she thought it would be less risky than elsewhere.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR: Talked to friends who were doctors. Used the Internet to search for information. Were influenced by the prime minister's response to questioning about immunisation decisions for his son.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 12 >> Feels more comfortable with the risk that her children may catch measles than immunising against it.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals for their son. For MMR and immunisations for their daughter: Conducted an extensive review of the literature and scientific studies using the Internet and talked to their GP and health visitor.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 29 >> Her second child is autistic and though she feels she should immunise her younger children she cannot bring herself to.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR: Reactions that their first son had to MMR influenced their decisions for their other children.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age under 1 >> Interview 03 >> Believes the risk of the diseases far outweighs the risk from the MMR vaccine.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed the recommendations of health professionals. She used the Internet to gather information on MMR, particularly from a parenting web site and talked to her Mum, which helped her to make a decision.

• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Youngest child's age 1-2 years >> Interview 04 >> The safety of the single vaccines worried her so she decided to have MMR.

For DTaP/IPV/Hib: Followed recommendations of health professionals. For MMR she talked to the health visitor and GP, listened to media reports and trusted the decision that her boss had made about immunisation.

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• Pregnancy & children >> Immunisation >> Weighing up the risk >> Weighing up the risk

Weighing up the Risk