Just as a cautionary note…don’t try the same thing with smallpox.
Just a note: if a child caught chickenpox after being vaccinated, the child was not immunized. The child was vaccinated. Because it’s impossible to know immunization status without blood tests (and these still may not entirely predict whether someone will get a disease if exposed), it’s inaccurate to call any person ‘immunized’ unless you know they are truly immune. Vaccinated, yes. (And some people have had chickenpox twice, so even someone who has had it once may not be immunized.)
I’ve heard of people trying to infect their kids while they were young. A friend’s sister used to own a daycare, and some parents requested their children play with some kids who had chicken pox.
When I was a child, my parents & neighborhood parents had chicken pox parties. My mother tried, for years, to get me to catch the chicken pox. Eventually they came to the conclusion I was naturally immune, after my sister went through a whole course without me getting it. Lucky me.
The punchline, of course, is that my sister got it for the 2nd time, very mildly, just after I turned 18. She gave it to me. My fever spiked at 105 (yes, we went to the ER). I had pox on the soles of me feet, in my mouth (several of which got infected and wouldn’t heal-- because of course it was too painful to brush my teeth), in my ears (a hellish experience), up my you know what, on every inch of skin. . .I looked like I had smallpox. I was, between the fever, the percoset and the anti-itch meds, completely delerious. All I really remember about the first few days is wanting to die. If I can avoid inflicting this disease on my kids, I will.
By the way, one of my college roomates was part of the early clinical trials of the vaccine (we are 25 now). So they really don’t know if the immunity is life long. However, she is still tested regularly, and as of when I last spoke to her (about 2 years ago) she was still immune.
Odd - it seemed when I was little EVERYONE had chicken pox.
I don’t think I know anyone who missed it - except my friend Fiona, who spent her elementary school years in Ireland and caught it from a much younger sibling when she was in highschool. That wasn’t pretty.
True. However I can guarantee that it won’t feel rare enough if your child dies from complications of chicken pox. 
It’s different in Ireland and the UK, where we don’t regularly vaccinate our kids against it. So it’s one of those things that almost EVERYONE has before they’re 10th birthday, and chicken pox parties are the norm.
I had it when I was 8, and it wasn’t a big deal, my younger sister was supposed to catch it, but never did, so she got it when she was 16 and was pretty unwell for 3 weeks. She has 2 or 3 scars on her chest and face, but nothing horrendous.
My baby sister caught it from me when she was 18 months, and only had 3 or 4 pox, having such a mild case at such an early age didn’t confer lasting immunity. She caught it again when she was 15 but had only a very mild case and no lasting scars, I think she was only in bed for 3 days.
I know I would certainly want my kids to be immune, and infection is the best way of insuring that…with the proviso of possible serious illness and shingles in later life.
If I was planning on having a baby, I would certainly want to make sure I was immune, as catching chicken pox in the very late stages of pregnancy is a big no-no (shingles when pregnant isn’t a problem). A pregnant woman with small children is likely to be exposed to chicken pox from either her kids or their friends, so women who are not naturally immune should get their titres checked and should be re-vaccinated if necessary before each pregnancy.
Not so easy if you have an unplanned pregnancy, but there you go.
Discuss with your doctor, they can inform you on exactly how to weigh up the risks and benefits of your possible courses of action wrt your kids.
You’re forgetting to take into account that children are now getting vaccines for Chicken Pox, so the risk of getting the disease as an adult is dropping rapidly. While still fairly new (it only came out, what, 5 years ago?) vaccinated people are spreading, so the herd immunity is going up.
Going to semi-hijack here. If your child gets chicken pox or the flu, DO NOT GIVE THEM ASPIRIN! Bad things can happen with aspirin and chicken pox - I am living proof. I caught chicken pox from my sister when I was a kid, unknowing parents gave me aspirin, and I developed Reye’s Syndrome - Read up on it on Yahoo Health . It can kill. I was very lucky that I had a good doctor - was put in the hospital, and came out with no real damage.
Susan
The herd immunity needs to be over 90% for it to be effective, and since we don’t know how long immunity from the vaccine lasts, but DO know that childhood VZV is milder, with fewer complications than adult ZVZ, there is a definite risk/benefit payoff.
Getting your kids titres checked every few years, and having them re-vaccinated is probably the best option, but dismissing the idea of acquiring natural immunity altogether would be premature.
Worst case scenario, all the vaccines wear off in 10 years, and you get too many of cases of teenagers and young adults with chicken pox for comfort.
You’re not going to be able to reduce exposure to VZV completely, as almost every adult in the country has contracted it at some point, and many will get shingles as a result…and when someone has shingles they’re shedding varicella virus. Not as much as in chicken Pox, but it’s still a risk.
I worked in a daycare/preschool the 80s, and whenever we had a child come down with cp, the vast majority of the parents requested that we let their child play in the class where the outbreak occured. I remeber coming to work one day and there were 36 kids in attendance- the rest of the total enrollment of 150 had chickenpox! They wanted them to “get it over with” before starting school.
FWIW I had them twice, once as a kid and again when I was 22 (caught from above mentioned daycare outbreak)= very mild both times.
I’d try and get them infected now. Especially with summer coming. I got it when I was 14 and it was a horrible experience.
When I was a kid, one of the other kids on the block got chicken pox. The moms got together and decided that the rest of us might as well get it too, since it was summer vacation anyway. Needless to say this was long before the vaccine was available.
The only child who got more than mildly ill was the original case’s younger brother, and he would have gotten it anyway. I’m not a parent, and I am an epidemiologist, but I think my personal decision in this situation would be similar to my mother’s. I’d expose my kids (assuming they were healthy), and manage the disease if it manifested. As I see it, without much deep thought:
Potential risk: small in magnitude but severe
Potential benefit: potential for stronger immunity but may be redundant because of vaccination status
We were hoping that our son would catch it naturally before we were forced to get him vaccinated. But it seems that every other family we know had their kids vaccinated early, so none of them came down with it. We finally got him vaccinated just befopre he started kindergarten, as required by law in our district.
When my daughter was 3, her babysitter told me her someone in the group of kids she sat for had chickenpox. The vaccine was available back then, but it was expensive, not covered by insurance, and not available at the Health Department.
I allowed her to play and be infected. So far, at age 10, she’s fine.
Now, the clinic at our school (She attends the school where I teach.) sends notes home to parents asking if their child has had chicken pox (also known as varicella) or the vaccine.
I think pretty soon the chicken pox vaccine will be another of the required immunizations.
I’ve heard of chicken pox parties as well, and think they’re odd, but I can clearly see people’s reasoning. When I had it, my parents still took me out to the public swimming pool and me and my pox covered friends played with the other children. I’ve never known anyone who had a horribly bad case of the chicken pox, and only maybe two that didn’t have it as children. I thought it was just part of growing up, like watching Star Wars, or Gremlins, but there are people who haven’t seen that either.
Chances are, if your kids have had the vaccine, I can’t imagine them catching CP anytime soon. They probably will end up getting it later in life, when it’s a bit more detrimental. As with anything, there’s the danger that if your child does contract CP, it could be a very bad case, but the same can be said about the flu. Difference is, when you get the flu, you generally don’t become immune to it for the rest of your life. I say go for it and just be prepared in case they get hit with a hard case. Chances are though, they’ll be fine.
It is assumed that I am immune from chickenbox, but of course there’s no way to know. My mom got a bad case of it when she was pregnant with me, and the doctor assumed that I caught it too. He was anxious to see if I had spots on me when I was born, but I did not. However, my parents did try to expose me to it later and I haven’t gotten it (yet). Perhaps I should get the vaccination, just in case.
well, until I read that and the fact that it only came out five years ago, I assumed I’d been vaccinated … or was in some way ‘protected’ since I had it mildly twice before the age of 13.
They tested me when I was pregnant and said I was not immune but it was too late for the shot (from there I inffered mistakenly that I’d had a shot). When they went to discharge me from the hospital post c-section, they told me I needed the Rubella shot, too; I signed a paper rather than make a decision hopped up on fatigue, adrenaline, and percoset.
Hrm. Maybe I need to look into getting those shots now before we try for the next kid.