Reply #108: We don't worry about people getting HIV from casual contact with AIDS patients.

[pnwmom]

In the same way, a child won't be getting Hep-B from casual contact with someone infected with that disease. There's no reason to push this vaccine into fragile newborns (all newborns are fragile) who haven't contracted the illness from the mother. The vaccine can wait till the child is closer to the age where exposure might occur.

My doctor told me that the reason they give it to newborns is in case the mother is infected -- and, when she isn't, for the sake of convenience. (The baby is there and the parents are strongly motivated.) But that argument is weaker now since they've realized that when the vaccine is given at birth the immunity only lasts a few years.