I'm sitting at my computer, vitamin C'd up, at 6:43am, because a sore throat made another appearance... and it's graduation for my EMU friends! And I want to go! And I was just sick two weeks ago!
I'm blaming my sugar intake (it increased since my parents left. haha. funny. not funny.), because I have been doing really well with taking my cod liver oil. it could also be the lessening amount of sleep that happens at the end of pregnancy for me (we are 31 weeks now! In the homestretch!). And that Naisa went to the child care at our moms group on Thursday.
I follow a different mom's group on facebook where the moms help each other by providing information about vaccinations (through Pub Med studies, published scholarly studies, etc) so that each mom/dad has an arsenal when people confront them (or want reasons, like an MD might) that they have a delayed or nonexistant vaccination record for their children. This is why I am thinking about this topic this morning. (Happy post easter, btw! He is STILL RISEN! AMEN.)
Have you ever witnessed a circumcision? Or seen a baby been vaccinated? How about as a mother? Listening to a baby scream in pain is something that a mother drops everything for, to run to their child to comfort them. And we, as parents, give our children vaccines because they protect our children, right? That is our innate nature as a parent, to desire protection for our sweet lovely babes.
My husband was "under" vaccinated as a child (he did not receive the MMR shot until he was a teenager) and held an alternative perspective when we were pregnant with Naisa, and I did the research because I had the time to do so, and we also visited an MD who we hoped to hire as a pediatrician, who recommended not to skip every shot, but to get the DTap and Hib shots, as he had seen, treated, and watched children with pertussis and Haemophilus Influenzae type B (that's Hib, in case you were wondering. I had to look it up) who weren't vaccinated suffer from these illnesses. It was well known to me (in my small amount of research) that babies could die from whooping cough.
Influenced by this doctor's opinion (because that is what it is, not mandated law), we chose to give Naisa the shots for DTap and Hib at two months. Ben (husband) came along for this appointment (he was finishing his last semester of school, so he had flexibility), and was horrified/traumatized by the experience. Naisa cried fiercely for a full hour when it was time for bed, and Ben started to notice arm tremors and that freaked him out. It deeply concerned me too.
Although I come from a background where I was fully vaccinated, and appreciated the shots I received as a child/teenager/ and felt much benefit from where modern medicine had come from (I was still very pro-anti-biotic at this point; I had strep throat many, many times as a child. I also had pretty bad reactions to poison ivy when I was younger and got steroid shots for those.) As a child and teenager, I did not know that side effects could be so severe for people (especially very little people). I remember reading the vaccination insert for Hep B when I was in high school, and reading about the side effects that one gets from the shot and thinking that I was invincible to them, that I wouldn't get them. And I didn't--thus the trust in the medical system.
So I was "ok" with the cries from the shots-- at the doctor's office. In my mind they were for the good health of my child. But the next few weeks/months, and that first night, when she took an hour to fall asleep, I was concerned. It was scary for me. I felt like something wasn't right.
Many pro-vaccination-opinionated persons feel that those who are pro-unvaccination are just afraid of the system, out to get their vaccinated kids (um, no), and are just hippies who don't do their research, don't have any real science backing their claims, and don't trust the system.
I started having more fear for the vaccines than the illnesses. What was I injecting in my child? I did more research. I realized I was uncomfortable giving my child something that made her cry for an hour (and for no other reason) and caused her to shake, though having no other affect on her.
I also came to the realization that I wasn't afraid of the illnesses that my daughter could get. I have tools in my arsenal to handle them, and the means to help her body and mine maintain healthy immunity. I have done my research and found that there are other ways to handle being sick than giving antibiotics and other ways to recover than using over the counter medicines. I feel this way especially because of what happens when a body experiences loss of beneficial gut flora through the usage of antibiotics.
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