Is maternal vaccination safe during breastfeeding? – Eurasia Review

In light of the ongoing anti-vaccination movement, a new provocative article provides a comprehensive overview of the potential risks of vaccinating badfeeding women.

The article, which determined that only smallpox vaccine and, in some circumstances, the yellow fever vaccine, are the only potentially harmful vaccines for infants, is published in Breastfeeding medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., eds.

In "Vaccination and Breastfeeding," Philip Anderson, PharmD, University of California at San Diego, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, reviewed all of the most common types of vaccines, including inactivated and attenuated types living with unfounded concern to harm the infant or impair the infant's response to early vaccination.

Dr. Anderson's review includes routine immunization against influenza, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus (DPT), chickenpox and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). The article also focuses on vaccines related to specific exposure or risk factors, such as hepatitis A or hepatitis B, and on specialized vaccines such as the cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, rabies and typhoid.

"As Dr. Anderson concluded in his important and timely article, there is no risk in giving badfeeding mothers routine immunizations and most other standard vaccinations, including measles, and in fact, there are benefits for both mothers and infants, "says Arthur I. Eidelman, MD, editor-in-chief of Breastfeeding medicine.

These benefits include the transfer to the infant of maternal antibodies, an improved immune response and a smaller fever following vaccination, as Dr. Eidelman explains in the report. accompanying editorial entitled "Guidelines for Vaccination of Nursing Mothers".

Dr. Eidelman added that "not only the administration of routine vaccinations to badfeeding mothers is not harmful, but one can and should include badfeeding mothers in any emergency vaccination campaign against measles, such as the recent emergency declared by the New York City Department of Health. . "