As it becomes time to make many decisions for our new baby I have been thinking about and discussing vaccinations. There seems to be much conflicting research and many different opinions. I would like to know what everyone out there thinks.
Please share your experiences of having your children vaccinated or your thoughts and opinions of having or not having vaccinations. Please know that no point of view or opinion will be judged by me and I ask that in expressing your opinions you do not judge others for their actions or differing opinions.
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7 comments:
You've probably heard enough out of me. I was going to email you just a few little points I had forgotten, though.
I'm not completely anti-vax. I would really like them to clean up the ingredients list and remove all the non-necessary fillers, especially heavy metals like mercury and aluminum among others, and live viruses, and other gunk.
I do believe some vaccinations are a waste: i.e. chicken pox, Flu, Rotovirus (it's a VIRUS, people!), the one for girls for cervical cancer, Hepatitis B for newborns, and the MMR cocktail (3-in-1 dose) and any other cocktail. They should come one at a time, and babies don't sleep around yet, so let's not automatically give them the HepB shot on the day they are born.
Although I don't agree with the MMR cocktail, I do believe that boys should receive a mumps vaccine before the are teenagers, because if they do get mumps in their teenage years, it can render them infertile - and we have had way too much trouble with infertility in our family to play with that one!!
My only other preference is to space them all out, if one is choosing to do them all. Babies can't handle the load of all these injections, most of their injections are with multiple vax's at a time - it's not good.
Ideal would be to have our bodies develop their own immunities and boost our immune systems in healthful ways. Next ideal would be to be selective about the vax's received and WHEN they are received.
My last ideal would be to hold off beginning vax's until children reach 3 or 4 years old, if not until adulthood when the need arises (traveling overseas, risky circumstances or occupation, etc.) and give these babies a chance to develop while they are still so susceptible to those heavy metals and other toxins.
Okay. Enough opinions from me!!!
Good luck making your decision. (You're so brave to ask!!) ;)
I don't know the answer but since they have to be vaccinated in order to go to public school I think you are kind of tied to get them.
You're probably asking about timing more than anything but just like it is hard on them to get them so young imagine a 5 year old that can kick and scream and run from you and try and get him all the shots he would need in order to go to school.
I really don't know much about it so I can't help much but there is my reasoning behind having my kids up to date on immunizations.
Touchy subject - you are brave.
Out of 5 kids I have never had any opinion until the 5th. The first 4 had their scheduled shots, I read the info, didn't really understand alot of it and put trust in the pharm companies. We didn't seem to have any problems (unless a side effect is 'inability to keep a room clean' or 'occasional sassiness')
Then before Nathan was born I had a strong impression not to have his done - this was completely aside from his home birth. I originally thought we would have his shots done the same time as his circumcision (another touchy subject). However, when I took him in and even as the nurse brought in the shots, I felt so strongly to refuse them. I was red in the face, felt stupid because I couldn't give a good medical reason not to have them done and walked out feeling confused.
After a couple of weeks I was so glad that I followed through with that impression because of the problems that started to show up with Nathan. He had terrible rashes from lotion, laundry soap, foods I ate while nursing, digestion problems and no matter what we tried it didn't seem to work. I was so glad that we let his body work things out on its own without also adding shots to that.
Now as he approaches 2 we are considering his first shots but we will be doing them individually rather than 4 shots and an oral all at once. I'm not sure how much his body can handle so we will start slow. Probably just with the tetanus to start with since he is becoming more of an outside kid, a little older and likely to get cut. Then we will slowly move on from there.
I'm not against immunizations. I just personally feel that the decision might need to be based on each individual and what do we really know about our babies in the first 2 days? or 2 months? And maybe it is just Nathan. I haven't had any strong opinion about the baby that is coming but I will wait until I see how he reacts to other environmental things around him, how I feel and we will go from there.
On the school front, you can sign a form giving a medical or personal reason for not having immunizations done. We have a couple of friends who have done that and as long as the school has proof of following through, you are ok.
Good luck in the decision process - it's a big one with lots of controversy. Just do what you both feel is right for your baby, no matter what others opinions are. Even mine :D
UMMMMMM...
I don't do the baby stuff, but this old guy I know keeps telling me to "pray about it"
Not very good in that department either but it can't hurt I guess;)
Ha this is the day! John telling someone to pray!
Kimber gives all the good advice! No fair!
I was a little bugged when they gave Korben his Hep B vaccine without my permission when he was only 5lbs and couldn't even hold his temperature. However, other than a little bit of crankiness, he always did fine with them (he is done till school, now yippee!!) so I let it go.
Logan on the other hand had a slight reaction at 2 months and I just had his 4 month shots done 2 days ago. His leg is hard and red and swollen again, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. He did have a fever but nothing major. It kind of sucks for a day when they are cranky, but I still feel it is worth it to have them done.
My reasons for this are simply that (1)I HATE needles. I figure if I can get all the immunizations done before they can really get a fear of needles, all the better. As far as the MMR (3 shots in one) I actually prefer that because then I don't have to hold them while they get five shots instead of 3. If they can mix them, by all means do it (in my opinion).
I haven't studied it a lot and I don't really have a strong opinion, but I figure that (2)in today's world whether they are sleeping around or not they can catch things. Just look at nursery...it is a haven for bad things, just a few weeks ago they had a breakout of scabies in our ward...and that is in church! What could they catch from an airport or restaurant?
(3)As far as the chicken pox I am all for it because of a little boy in our ward that had a bad reaction to chicken pox and ended up having his leg amputated at 3. That scared me into a chicken pox vaccination for sure.
Obviously there are some cases when vaccinations can have adverse effects. To me they are worth the risk. I think for the general public it is probably the way to go. Just like I don't think wearing 2 sets of earrings is necessarily bad, the prophet just had to cap it off somewhere. I think the medical field had to set an immunization schedule up that would fit the general public...but some circumstances don't fit withing their guidelines, that's just life.
So this has turned into an extremely long reply. Like I said, I haven't studied it out so am not educated in all of the medicine, but I don't feel that it is wrong in any way to have my children's immunizations done. I'm not one to questions doctors since having a c-section. I am just glad that someone went to that much schooling to take care of me and my children. :)
I think Kimber makes a good point. Her older kids obviously don't have any adverse effects from having them done. But I think she is wise to have waited with Nathan based on how he was as a baby. Just go with what you feel. I don't have a spiritual feeling on the subject, so until I do, I'm going to stick with them.
(Sorry this is so long!)
This was a topic that I went back and forth on with both my kids. We talked to our family physician, who has a more laid back approach to medicine than most doctors, and he told us that he recommends vaccinations for children who are at higher risk for exposure, i.e. daycare. In our case we chose to vaccinate our kids because Weldon works in a hospital and we didn't want to chance him passing something onto our kids. If his work environment was different we would have chosen differently. I'm sure you'll choose what is best for you and your family, just trust your gut! :)
I love all the opinions. No one tells you what to do. I've been a little leary on vaccinations as well just because of the side effects I've heard of. I just asked Dragon what he thought about vaccinations and he said "why not?"
We each have our own opinion but I think everyone is right in saying - trust your instincts and pray about it (I'm writing this one in the history books John ;) ). I'm interested to see what I actually do when I have kids.
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