My mother vaccinated me herself at a time when it was becoming less common to give smallpox vaccines (she was a nurse). My doctor had not ordered one for me. Since all this talk about smallpox, I have been thinking that it has to count for something, even thirty or so years after the fact. Maybe it will make the difference between life and death, or the difference between a mild case and a severe one. My mother has also been thinking about this, and she's glad she vaccinated me.
Can any doctor or other knowledgable person report what the likelihood that immunity would pass on is? I know it works for some things, but is smallpox one of them? In that case a great many younger children would indeed have a good chance of being immune, as I know breastfeeding has exploded in the past ten years especially.
If this is the case, I shall have to thank my mother for breastfeeding me and my siblings.
Sorry, but no. The antibodies passed from mother to child only help while the child is breast feeding. What is then needed is the ability of the immune system to make its own antibodies. That can only happen if the immune system is exposed to the virus so that it can use it as a template to make an antibody, and then to store the design code for the antibody.