Vaccines??

Vaccines scare the hell out of me.  My family doesn't believe in immunizations, and I was never immunized for anything until I was 18, went to college, and decided to have them done as an adult.  Many people don't know that you don't actually have to immunize your children... it's your constitutional right not to.  My mom felt really strongly about it because one of her friends had her healthy baby immunized and he developed a severe mental and physical handicap from it... so she didn't want to risk anything.  She wrote a letter to her congressman and got a letter back to give to our schools, basically "pardoning" us.

I still don't know what I am going to do when I have my own baby.  I know a ton of people who have had their children immunized and everything has been just fine... but it still scares the hell out of me.

It"s a personal choice but for me working in Infection Control at my hospital for years, I have learned that  immunizations save lives and the benefits outweigh the risks of not having them done big time.

I will be immunizing my baby- just like my first son and like i was...

Tylonol and soothing of course and make sure to talk to you doctor about it.

I am also pro-vaccine- Recently there has been  lot of talk about a whooping cough epidemic killing kids in California- having received the vaccine really reduces the risk. Diseases we think no longer exist do still circulate. The autism link is false- the Dr. who claimed the link in the first place recently had his medical license revoked for falsifying the data on his several studies- I saw this on the evening news just last week, so don't worry too much about that being caused by vaccines. If you feel she is getting too many, then a delayed schedule may work. I think my pedi goes on a more delayed schedule, because my 2 month old never received so many shots at once, so it could be office preference. If that is the case, then there is some leeway and you can request that. It's hard to see them suffer, but I believe that things are changing and that these illnesses that we vaccinate for will be back- people who do not vaccinate are partially to blame for that, because they are succeptible and then the illnesses can mutate and change and become reistant to vaccines, so I personally believe the more responsible thing to do is to vaccinate. As for being able to be educated in the public school system without vaccination, my state does not allow it under any cir****tances- home school is the option for those wishing to not vaccinate, or a private school, although there are currently none in this area who allow that. I guess it really is up to you.
It's hard to watch them suffer for a few days, but it would be worse to lose your child to something preventable- it would be a lot harder to live with yourself for the rest of your life if that happened.

Carrie

WE have decided to stick with the CDC vaccination schedule. Amelia had her Hep B shot at her 4 week appt and will be getting I think 2 more at her 2 month appt. She cried for about 30 seconds last time and was fine after that. We are sticking with the "normal" schedule because it has been tested and proven to be what's best for most people (to each their own). I am a firm believer that you generally only hear the horror stories, just like when we were deciding to have our WLS people tell you the worst because that's what "sells". You and DH have to decide what is best for Sage though.

I know someone else mentioned it but Whopping Cough is the perfect example. My cousin is in 6th grade, this past year 3/4 of the school was out with WC. This is something that was thought to be "gone" but because people weren't getting vacinated it returned.

Good luck