Home visits 'could aid baby jabs'

The study looked at childhood vaccinations

Home visits may help ensure babies are immunised against diseases, researchers have suggested.

Institute of Child Health experts analysed data for over 18,000 children born across the UK between September 2000 and July 2002.

Just over 3% of nine-month-old babies - most of whom were from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds - had received only some of their jabs.

The researchers said home visits were a way of helping this group.

Immunisation remains the safest way for parents to protect their children against serious diseases Department of Health spokeswoman

Under the UK immunisation schedule, babies should be given immunisations against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, HIB, meningitis C and polio and two, three and four months of age.

While these are mostly conditions which are not usually seen in the UK, there are some cases of whooping cough seen.

And where immunisation fails, conditions such as diphtheria can spread easily.

Missed appointments

In the study, mothers of children were interviewed when their babies were about nine months old to find out what immunisations they had received.

Overall, 3.3% of infants were partially immunised and 1.1% were unimmunised.

These rates were highest in England - 3.6% and 1.3% respectively.

Those who had received only some of the jabs were more likely to come from an ethnic minority group, a deprived background or a large family.

The babies were also more likely to have been born to a teenage mother or single parent, and have a mother who smoked during pregnancy.

Being in hospital also increased a child's risk of failing to get some of their routine jabs.

Mothers said factors such as being unable to get an appointment or missing clinics because of other concerns in their family lives were a key reason for not completing their child's immunisations.

The small number of children who had not been immunised at all were more likely to have mothers who were over 40, highly qualified or Caribbean.

Mothers' beliefs or attitudes towards immunisation were the main reason cited for not having their children immunised.

'Local responsibility'

Dr Helen Bedford, who led the study, said: "The overwhelming message is that the majority of children are fully immunised."

She added: "Not completing immunisations is very much about not being able to go in to the clinic or not having an appointment.

"There are a group of children who are not fully immunised. And we need to ensure they are, if that is what their parents want.

"Home visits might be necessary for some people. We need to get to them or get them to come to us."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Immunisation remains the safest way for parents to protect their children against serious diseases.

"Nine out of 10 children get their jabs by their first birthday and as a result childhood diseases are at very low levels and some have virtually disappeared.

"It is the responsibility of primary care trusts to develop innovative strategies to increase uptake in hard to reach groups in their local community and we fully support them in doing this."