Informed consent: Moms, do YOU want to be vaccinated after giving birth?

I wanted to give a heads up to moms who will be giving birth anytime soon in a hospital and possibly in freestanding birth centers. Several different moms have told me recently that after they gave birth in a hospital (two different hospitals), staff offered vaccinations to the mother. I'm not talking about the Hepatitis B vaccine typically offered to newborns. I'm talking about vaccines for mom.

One mom, in her post-birth blur, said that she was pretty sure that one of the vaccines may have been pertussis and she wasn't sure what the second one was (possibly flu?). She consented because the healthcare worker (I'm not sure whether it was a nurse, doctor, or other) rolled up her gown sleeve for her and told her that she *had* to have these vaccines. She did receive both vaccines, but she didn't feel that it was informed consent.

The other hospital did not present it falsely as a mandate, and the mother at that hospital declined the vaccines without any further struggle.

I'm not telling you to accept or decline any vaccine. I'm just here to give moms a heads up that they may need to make such a decision shortly after giving birth in an institution, so it's best to research your options and make your choices on available information instead of in a rushed manner, without having time to read product inserts or ingredient lists, and when they know that you're distracted with a newborn on your chest. Whether to accept or decline vaccines for mom is not something that most women think to include in their birth plans.

Links to CDC list of vaccine ingredients, PDF (US licensed vaccines)

Links to package inserts for US licensed vaccines

CDC page listing possible side effects of US vaccines

CDC list of vaccine contraindications (US vaccines)

VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), co-sponsored by CDC, FDA, and US Dept. of Health and Human Services

National Institutes of Health/ Cochrane Review to "assess all studies evaluating the effects of vaccines against influenza in healthy adults." Conclusion: "Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.WARNING: This review includes 15 out of 36 trials funded by industry (four had no funding declaration). An earlier systematic review of 274 influenza vaccine studies published up to 2007 found industry funded studies were published in more prestigious journals and cited more than other studies independently from methodological quality and size. Studies funded from public sources were significantly less likely to report conclusions favorable to the vaccines. The review showed that reliable evidence on influenza vaccines is thin but there is evidence of widespread manipulation of conclusions and spurious notoriety of the studies. The content and conclusions of this review should be interpreted in light of this finding."

It's always a good idea to research ingredients and relative safety/risk of each vaccine vs. the relative safety/risk of each illness as well as the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of each vaccine. It seems that many people spend more time reading the ingredient list on the back of their cereal boxes than they do reading what is injected into their (or their children's) bodies.