Do Seizures After Vaccination Have Implications on Children’s Behavior and Development? Should Moms Worry?

Some parents have become skeptical about vaccinations and the possible adverse outcomes of it. However, a new study can now put some parents to ease as they have found no negative effects on the development of children who suffered from febrile seizures after vaccination.

Furthermore, they said no associations had been determined between febrile seizures not related to vaccination and children who have never had a seizure before. Lucy Deng, one of the authors of the study from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) in Sydney, Australia, says that parents will now be relieved to hear that having a febrile seizure after vaccination does not affect the child's development.

The study looked at 62 children who had febrile seizures within two weeks after receiving a vaccination. Moreover, the researchers compared them to 70 children who had febrile seizures from other causes and 90 more children without a history of seizures.

All the children who had seizures were identified to be younger than 2.5 years old at the time of the seizure. Some limitations of the study include a relatively small number of participants. The researchers also suggest further studies to follow children for more extended periods of time.

The study was supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, and its findings were published in the journal Neurology on July 1, 2020.

Also Read: Vaccination: The Most Effective Remedy Of Getting Rid Of Diarrhoea Pathogens From The Body

The Risk of Seizure with Vaccination

According to Mayo Clinic, a febrile seizure is a convulsion in a child caused by a spike in body temperature. An article published at the New England Journal of Medicine says that vaccines shouldn't be blamed for seizures since such occurrences are rare and most often have another etiology.

Furthermore, another study from 2015 published at the journal Epilepsy Currents says that vaccination may trigger seizures, but not directly cause them. In the study, the researchers conducted a series of genome-wide association scans comparing children with MMR-related febrile seizures, children with febrile seizures not related to vaccination, and a control group with no history of febrile seizures.

The authors of the study hypothesized that MMR-related febrile seizures might involve a two-step pathway. They believe that MMR-related febrile seizure variants could trigger an immune response, while the general febrile seizure variants affect seizure susceptibility.

Children's Development Unaffected by Vaccine-related Seizures

The recent study has found that children's cognitive, motor, and language functions were unfazed by seizures following the administration of a vaccine.

The subjects were tested by certified developmental assessors who knew nothing about the child's seizure history. Furthermore, their behavior was also evaluated through questionnaires filled out by their parents.

The children with seizures were then tested within one to two years following the seizure. As a result, the researchers found no differences in the children's behavior, development, or thinking skills between all three groups.

According to Deng, their findings would be valuable in providing reassurance to parents and providers about vaccines' safety, especially when pandemics and new diseases are emerging.

Finally, Deng also pointed out other factors not related to having developmental problems. These included a febrile seizure lasting for more than 15 minutes, fever-associated seizures before the age of one, or more fever-associated seizures after the first episode of a seizure.