Chickenpox Vaccine for My Child? Medical Author: Melissa Conrad
Stöppler, MD Medical Editor: William C. Shiel Jr., MD, FACP,
FACR My children were not vaccinated against chickenpox. When
they were young, we were living in Europe, where the medical
community does not encourage immunization against this disease.
Consequently, my kids developed chickenpox at an early age,
during one month in which over 30 children in our neighborhood
became infected. I had, in fact, planned to have the children
immunized for chickenpox on our next visit to the U.S., but the
infection came before that happened. My oldest child, who was 4
at the time, contracted chickenpox from a friend at preschool.
He hardly suffered at all; there were perhaps only 20 or 25 skin
lesions in total. Not so for my youngest two children, then aged
2 and a half and 16 months. Because their exposure came from
their older brother at home ("prolonged" exposures in the home
can lead to more severe disease than casual or onetime
exposures) they were both c