To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate…

Jos

12 years ago

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…those aren’t your only options!

We plan on being somewhere in the middle for sure. I definitely don’t agree with the American Academy of Pediatric’s recommended vaccine schedule. It’s just too many, too fast. (There are currently 12 Vaccines on the Standard Childhood Schedule, as opposed to I believe 4 when we were babies.) I also don’t feel that not vaccinating is the route for us – I think that vaccines were created for a reason, and that diseases like polio and TB have almost been eradicated in our county thanks to mass vaccinations.

That being said, our vaccination plan has definitely changed. Originally, I was hoping to stay home with Stella for at least the first six months and not put her in daycare at all, and if that was the case, we were going to delay more shots for longer (because of the decreased risk of contracting illnesses thanks to no daycare/less public exposure). However, when Stella was 8w old, plans changed, I started a job working in the local medical center, and during my very first week there, we diagnosed our first case of pertussis of the year. Certain immunizations are definitely getting kicked up the priority list. *sigh*

For anyone researching vaccine information, I highly recommend The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears. It’s full of great, unbiased information. He dedicates a chapter to each of the 12 standard vaccines and answers the following questions about each:

Is it common?
Is it serious?
Is it treatable?
When is it given?
How is it made?
What ingredients are in the final vaccine solution?
Are any of these ingredients controversial?
What are the side effects of this vaccine?
Should you give your baby this vaccine?
Reasons to get this vaccine…
Reasons some people choose not to get this vaccine…
Travel considerations…
Opinions to consider when getting this vaccine…
The way I see it…

The book is highly informative, and his final chapter (entitled “What Should You Now Do?”) breaks parents down into three groups, and I’d say I’m pretty solidly in the third group.

You believe that all the diseases are a threat, but you worry that some of the potential problems with vaccines haven’t been thoroughly researched to your satisfaction. You want to vaccinate, but you want to do so in a way that minimizes each potential risk (whether or not the risk is real). This group used to be somewhat smaller, but it has been growing in recent years as the media and the Internet bring theoretical problems with vaccines to light. Your biggest challenge is that your baby is young, you need to start vaccinating, but you just aren’t sure what to do.

I’d definitely say that describes me to a T. My Mom told me that when I was a baby, I had a scary, severe reaction to my first round of shots (which included MMR) – we’re talking 105 degree temp if I remember right, so after that, Mom spaced out all of her kid’s shots to one at a time. That just makes more sense to me. Because of that, I’ll probably be following Dr. Sears’ Alternative Vaccination Plan pretty closely. It allows you to minimize the amount of aluminum your baby is exposed to at a time, only gives a maximum of two shots at a time (in case of reactions, it’s easier to figure out what your baby reacted to, plus it allows their little bodies to process each vaccine more individually), it starts out with the diseases that are the biggest threat to infants, and it delays those that are fairly mild for infants/that they’re highly unlikely to catch as infants.We have already skipped the recommended HepB at birth and 1 month (I tested negative for it and nobody we are close with is a carrier, and since it’s an STD we weren’t worried about Stella contracting it as a baby!). We’ll integrate that shot later.

The “standard” thing to do at two months is a massive amount of shots, in my opinion. HIB, Pc, DTaP, Rotavirus, and Polio. No way, no how were we going to give that many vaccines at once, so today we started with just the DTaP and Rotavirus vaccines.

11#13oz and 23″ long today!

Rotarvirus is the only vaccine currently given in oral form (Stella just screwed up her face in an “ick” expression, but she swallowed it just fine). Since almost all kids catch it at some point, it’s more a question of “how bad” not “if” – and since Stella is now exposed to toddlers 2x/week at daycare, I wanted to get this one to help minimize the “how bad.”

DTaP is a shot in the thigh, and we decided to do this one right away because pertussis (whooping cough) is so dangerous for infants. Since we just diagnosed a case in my office last week, this was high on the priority list to get done right away. Poor Stella did NOT like this shot – I had to hold her arms down and try to talk to her and keep her calm, but her little face screwed up tight, she turned bright red, and then she took a deep breath, SCREAMED, and cried. Poor thing. 🙁 It took everything in me to not cry myself. I popped her on my breast right away afterwards, and once she settled down enough to latch, the nursing definitely helped to calm her down.

Biggest mistake I made today – I forgot to buy the damn infant tylenol BEFORE her appointment, so instead of being able to giver her a dose just before the shots, I had to drive a crying baby with a sore leg to Target to pick some up and give her a dose 30 minutes later. Oops. 🙁 I will not make that mistake again! Poor baby took a three hour nap this afternoon (as opposed to her normal 45 minutes snoozes). I hope her leg is feeling better by tomorrow.

As for the other standard two month shots, we are going to follow the plan I linked to above, delay polio until 9months, and do the Pc and HIB on the alternating months. Since I work in a medical office, it should be pretty easy to get her in at 3, 5, and 7 months for those shots, as it just requires a quick nurse visit. I know it’s pricking her more times, but I honestly feel like it’s a much safer alternative to doing 5 at once, and I’ll have the tylenol ready next time!

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