Chickenpox Vaccine

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?  When I was a kid there were options on whether or not a child received a vaccine for the chickenpox virus.  Most parents dealt with the virus by encouraging the exposure of their child(ren) to other children whom had the chickenpox.  The idea behind this was so that they would catch the chickenpox, and become immune from the illness later in life.  Since parents encouraged the exposure, many kids came down with the virus and were absent from school for days until the blisters crusted over and you were no longer contagious.

Today, it is a requirement that your child be vaccinated with the varicella virus before starting school.  As this article indicates, the requirement of the vaccine seems to have played a role in the change in absenteeism of kids in today's schools.  Yet, there is still some controversy for parents on whether having your child vaccinated is the right method in controlling the virus.
 
The chickenpox virus can remain latent in a person's nerve cells for many years.  Anyone who had chickenpox as a child may later become ill with shingles (a band of blisters). Although there is a shot available for those that come down with shingles, the blisters are said to be painful. Children, such as myself, that were exposed to the chickenpox virus as a child may now also need to deal with the later version of the virus - shingles. 

As a mother of two children, I never hesitated to give my kids the varicella vaccine.  My thought was to avoid the virus in any way possible.  As it turns out, my kids would have been required to have the vaccine before they started school anyway.  As an additional bonus, my kids will more than likely not have to deal with the shingles virus either.