General Discussion

When I was a child, back in the dark ages before vaccines for measles, chicken pox, etc., parents wanted their kids to get infected at a young age, around 5 years old, for a couple reasons. One was that some "childhood" diseases could affect fertility in people infected during their teens and as adults. Another reason was the effect of measles, particularly rubella, on the fetus if a woman got infected while pregnant. Kids who had a sibling or close friend who had measles were kept away from kids whose mothers were pregnant, unless the woman knew for certain that she had had rubella as a child and was immune.