Info on Vacinations

Well this is what I know... My older daughter had a tough time with the DPT and did not take the final dose until she was almost 19. so with my now 2 year old I went to the CDC web site looking for information ... and found out that even though vaccines claim to not have Thimerisol(20 years ago they has a lot) they still have a trace of it.. (flu shots have a lot)... primarily a lot of times issues are related to the preservative. (although fever is an immune response that is appropriate to a foreign disease it is just rough when it is 105 or greater). however why bother going through any of that... For the DPT there is Daptacel that does not have Thimerisol, not even trace amounts.

Here is the web site. Hope it helps

http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/thimerosal/thimer...

Jenna

Goodmorning R.,
Vaccinations are a tough issue for many little ones. Mine both had fevers and were cranky for days after thier shots untill they got a little bit older. I always gave them Tylenol right before leaving for the office, and it made a HUGE difference on thier discomfort. It was recommended by my oldests pediatrician, so it is safe and effective. You don't have to use tylenol, it could be any fever/pain reliever. It cuts down on the initial shock pain and then the fever to come. I do however suggest keeping current with all vaccinations these days. You never know what illnesses can come back or hit your child hard. Such as the whooping cough that is making rounds now. Not only does not vaccinating your child put your child at risk for such illnesses, it put you, other family members and other children and thier families in danger of contracting the illnesses as well. Vaccinations are a pain in the butt, however I personally see them as necessary. I would go on a few sites to check it out like you said, to be more comfortable to make your own more informed dicission. I think I would google search childhood vacinations and you should come up with many different sites with all points of views. I just wanted to give you my opinion and let you knwo what helped my children make it through all of thier shots with a little less pain and discomfort, for all of us. Good luck and good searching.

Andy already gave you some great info.
Just wanted to add one bit, it's about the blood brain barrier. It isn't developed till around 6 mths old. This barrier helps prevent toxins from entering the brain, so therefore before 6 mths toxins could easily penetrate the brain. Now vaccines have some toxins in it and if you give them before 6 mths, it's quite possible the toxins could enter the brain. This isn't saying that vaccines are necessarily safe after 6 mths either.
Best thing you should do is research, research and research. pick some books up from the library, if you can look up some medical journals. Take a look at the ingredients in the vaccines and then look closer at those ingredients. You can always hold off for now till you decide what is best. You can never undo a vaccine.

Hi, I have a 10 month baby girl and every time I took her to the doctor for vaccinations she had gotten a fever and extremely cranky which isn't normal for her but my doctor (in Wisconsin)said that that is a normal response and some doctors even say positive because it lets you know that your child's body is responding to the shots. She said that crankiness and fever for about 2-4 days is totally normal and I check with a few other doctors including some friends and they said the same thing. The only thing I was really told to watch is for a rash or if the fever got extrememly high. Hope this helps. T.

I wasn't going to respond since other moms gave such good information but I thought it was important to note something.

Another mom pointed out that we used to be afraid of penicillan and we aren't anymore. Well Penicillan is quite a dangerous drug to those who are allergic. In addition, over use of penicillan can create super resistant germs and also may cause serious gastric problems in children that have had early exposure to it. Penicillan and other antibiotics are wonder drugs that save many lives each year, but they aren't meant to be used casually, are not the correct response to every infection and are not without their own dangers even when used appropriately. We might be better off if we retained not fear, but a little more appropriate respect for these strong drugs.

Vaccines are the same way, there are some vaccines that are true life savers. They are not without their risks though, and some of the vaccines out there are used inappropriately or in uneccessary situations. The companies that make vaccines are in the business of selling vaccines, not protecting your child's health.

I'm generally pro-vaccine for my own child, however he is on a slowed down schedule for some due to early reactions he had, and there are some vaccines we won't be giving since it seems to me that the risks of the disease are less than the risks of the vaccine.

R., is it possible to figure out what vaccine your baby reacted to? Some vaccines are given in groups and often seperating them out into single vaccines reduces the chance of reactions. That way also you can just give the ones you feel are necessary.

As far as outbreaks of various diseases...very often these are a result of new strains of a disease that hits vaccinated and unvaccinated populations equally. Or often these outbreaks occur with older children who were vaccinated long ago and immunity has worn off. While having a disease usually confers life long immunity, vaccines do not always.

I can only pass on from personal experience. I have one son, and he went through the exact same thing with his shots. Minor fever, and crankiness after almost all of his vaccinations. His brothers and sisters (from his father) have also gone through it as well. As a matter of fact, most of the young children I have dealt with have, so I think it was more of a lucky break that your son didn't have any side effects. :) If it goes beyond a few days, then I would at least make a call to the doctor. I know that I'm not a professional, but it has been my experience. :)

Hi - I'd talk with your doctor about delaying. Some dr's in this area will balk at that kind of reaction from a parent (what - you think you know what's best for your child??!). So find out what their take is on it.

Second, is there any history of auto-immune problems in your family? That's an indicator that you (or your partner) could pass down sensitivites to your children. It's just part of gneetic roulette...some get it and some don't. Examples would be diabetes type I, lupus, arthritis, autism, Grave's disease, Chrone's/Colitis, and some types of cancers. You can google any disease under the sun these days and find out if it's an autoimmune disease. If it is, consider delaying vax. until maybe 2yo (which has been proven in Sweden and Japan to be a much safer age to begin vax), and then do them 1 at a time. Her reactions sounds pretty normal, in terms of reactions. Most kids who react to vax have a slight fever, swelling at the puncture site, and fretting/crying/poor sleep period for a few (2-5) days. However, vax are cumulative - part does leave the corporeal system but some of what's in there is meant to remain in the body - and can cause cumulative damage. I say use your intuition. She may be more sensitive than your son to those kinds of intrusions. And if you need a Dr. rec., lmk - we have a great dr. in Slingerlands!

Third - you do not have to vaccinate to enroll your child in school. Some daycares require them, because they change a lot of diapers, and toxins from vaccinations are transmitted through fecal matter, as well as - sometimes - through saliva (think of the toy in the mouth issues with that!). So if you are thinking of day care/preschools, be sure you research that before selecting.

Fourth - there are few sites that offer some sort of unbiased information on vaccines. http://thinktwice.com/vaccine.htm This one has some books that you may be able to find locally. I love the book Vaccinations: Issue of our Times put out by Mothering Magazine. It has articles by different authors, and is pretty thorough. Also the Book [url=http://www.amazon.com/Raise-Healthy-Child-Spite-Doctor/dp... to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor[/url] (written by a Pediatrician) is very helpful. What I LOVE about this author is that he ASSUMES we know our child, what we don't know are the illnesses - so he gives a rundown of all major illnesses, WHEN to go to the dr., how high a fever, how long puking, etc. He's very clear that there are times you SHOULD take your child to the Dr., and lots of times that you shouldn't - or just give a call and check in w/the nurse kind of thing. If you're local/Delmar I can loan you the mothering book - I doubt the library has one LOL!

Fifth - In the same way that it is recommended that people who could really get SICK sick from the flu get the flu shot every year, children who could potentially get super sick from something like chicken pox, mumps, even whooping cough should get vaccinated. Most kids? It's a pita and not fun to be sick, but they come out WAY stronger for having the illness than they do for having a shot with attenuated/killed viruses, preservatives and other stuff that they stuff in there. When my children got chicken pox I used homeopathic remedies on them and they had very little itching, a medium amount of pox, and it was over within 5 - 6 days respectively. I can't say they had FUN being sick, but they've had colds that lasted longer and were more uncomfortable. My little one had them during his first birthday - and he's just FINE. The chance of him having a reaction (that lasts almost as long as the illness) is way higher (more than 50%) than him having serious complications from the disease (less than 1%), in that case. Polio may be a different ball of wax to you and your partner. Also- if you are a working parent, it may not be easy for you to take time off to be w/a sick child. Mumps can last 2 weeks, whooping cough lasts usually 2-12 weeks. It's not seriously sick for that long, but you won't want them in school/daycare. They get tired easily and need more mamatime.

You are confronting a very tough issue. When we were making the decision to/not to vax, we had a really hard time finding REAL information. There isn't a lot - the studies that have been done are mostly from overseas. The local ones (US) are small, biased, not scientifically valid for the most part. Best of luck and feel free to contact me for more info.

ME: Dd 8yo, ds 20 mos, slinging, no circing, no vaxing, cosleeping sahmama and happy partner to JAC my bug-hugging man.

well if you want her to enter any school when she gets older they are required shots that you need to show proff they had the shots for them to enter school.. i know to get my kids in school they needed shot records up to date

I would rather have a few days of side effects than whooping cough. It is Hype, and the news reports of children getting whooping cough last year is just proof that a vaccination is working, and when people dont vaccinate they are just playing with a timebomb. Think about it, people were scared to use penacillin too. Don't be a victim of ignorance, almost all of the people who protest vaccinations are without children, or have their children vaccinated and are hypoctites. If you want your child in school, they need their vaccinations to walk through the door anyways. PLEASE, it IS for the benefit of the child, and we all turned out absolutely fine.

Hello R., before I had children I attended college in a Health Science degree program. I had a professor who turned me on to the dangers of vaccines. It is amazing what isn't told to us in a doctor's office. Now I am the mother of three girls. I waited to vaccinate my oldest till she was 2 yrs....and the second I did when she was 1 yr. The only vaccine I have given my little girl is Hep B. I think the answer is that you should do what you are comfortable with. The fever and crappiness is normal, but I wanted to wait due to the weight of my girls compared to the amount of vaccine they would give them. They wanted to give my 5 lb girl the same amount of vaccine as a 10 lb baby.....if you read all the info you can then you can make an informed choice, but in the end, you need to still do what you are comfortable with. There are many scary stories about Mom's that didn't know there were any risks....and there are, but you have to weigh the two sides. You can tell your pediatrician that you are not comfortable with it and that you want to wait...mine was really cool about it and said that she wanted me to do what I was ok with......best of luck.

I started to investigate this too. A lot of info on the web is not backed up by solid facts, only preliminary testing. The authors/doctors get paid by certain "groups" to publish certain "findings" It is really hard to get a straight answer. A few things I would make sure of 1. THat you are receiving mercury free DPT shots. Also a close friend of mine vaccinated her daughter at 4 weeks for rotovirus because the NURSE at the docs office told her it was required.(she later found out it was NOT required) Not a week later, her daughter was at Childrens Hospital for almost 3 weeks because she wouldn't eat. ROTOvirus vaccine was known in the past to cause gastro intestinal problems so it was taken off the market. I would just try to look at things objectively, do what you think is right for your family. I postponed my daughters first set of shots until she was 4 months old. Sorry I don't have more specific websites for you. Good luck and I hope this helped!
J. K
BUffalo

Hi R.,

There is a lot of information about this growing concern regarding vaccinations and, what it will come down to is using your Mama-intuition.
I learned through this very forum that a child's blood-brain barrier is not fully developed until around 2 1/2 y/o.
This means that toxins are free to pass into the brain.
The chemicals used to preserve vaccinations are made of heavy metals and are known neuro-toxins.
Making an informed decision mixed with your Mama-intuition is not becoming a "victim of ignorance". It is quite the opposite actually.
Much luck and many blessings!
s