No vaccinations??

[jbeamer]

I was wondering if anyone has not had their baby vaccinated. Or maybe waited until they were older instead of receiving them when they are so little. I have been reading a lot of articles and books on vaccinations and was interested in finding out what others opinions are on this topic.
Has anyone not done vaccinations? Has anyone had their baby/babies have reactions to the vaccinations besides soreness, irritability and fever? Any insights would be great. Thanks.

Jen

[Kayla]

I'm planning on waiting on Hepatitis B and Varicella. I'm still reasearching a couple of others. I read a very good article somewhere about assessing the risk factors and making an informed decision.

I'm taking the vaccines on a case by case basis, and will likely take most of them, though not necessarily on the recommended time table.

I certainly won't let my baby be immunized against Hep B in the hospital when it's just born, as it will be at low, if not no, risk of contracting this disease.

My fried who's a pediatrician agreed with me on this and waiting on varicella.

[MartiesMom2B]

Jen:

You can get some more info on this if you go to the mdc board. They have a whole section on vaccines too. I do believe that Rachels is waiting out on some vaccines too, so you might want to PM or e-mail her.

I'm not sure about the varicella vaccine, but its not required for my daughter to enter school. I'm not going to lie to the school system and say its against my religious beliefs, because its not.

I am going to immunize my daughter against all the hepititis viruses because I have been immunized because my grandmother died from Hepititis B (she contracted living in Taiwain) and her children are all carriers. I haven't been tested to see if I am a carrier but it's just added protection for my daughter. I saw my grandmother die from liver disease and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Sonia
Proud Mommy to Martie 4/6/03

[JWP]

Varicella vaccine IS required for entry into Texas schools and child-care facilities. Children who have already had chickenpox, however, do not have to be vaccinated. The vaccine requirements can be found on the Texas Department of Health website at www.ImmunizeTexas.com

[JWP]

I understand your rationale for waiting for the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine, but why varicella. The varicella vaccine is not given until the child is 1 year of age--the same age at which the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is administered. Unfortunately, every year in Texas, several children die from chickenpox (varicella), and there is simply no way to predict which children will have a mild course of illness and which ones will become seriously ill with chickenpox, subsequently developing pneumonia or encephalitis. It's certainly not a risk I'm willing to take with my child.

[Melanie]

We delay-vaccinate and some we are not doing at all until Ds is much older. We will not do the Hep-B until he is a preteen (probably). He is at a very little risk since I was vaccinated against it (he's nursing). I think the only way I would have was if I was not immune and was nursing AND was in an at-risk occupation.

We did DTaP only b/c we wanted the Tetanus and Pertussis and it was not possible to get them separately here. I am not for the multi-vaccines, but we had not choice. For this we weighed the risk of disease (particularly tetanus...) and decided for it.

We also did the HiB b/c meningitis scares the you-know-what out of me! One of my co-workers children died from it, and my cousin had it when he was an infant. We did not do the Prevnar just b/c I still feel it's too new of a vaccine, otherwise we would have.

We will not be doing the varicella unless Ds evades Chicken Pox until he's in the double-digits. If this vaccine is still around then, and proven safe, we'll consider it b/c we don't want Ds to get it later in life (Dh had it in high school and it was hard on him).

All other vaccines will either be delayed or skipped. When Ds did receive those 2 vaccines, we seperated the administration by 2 weeks. I feel strongly it's important not to overtax their immature immune systems. I also made sure that the vials were preservative-free so Ds would not be getting any thimerasol (sp?).

I'm ecstatic that I live in a state (& have a pediatrician) which I do not have to jump through any legal hoops to parent my child in a way that I feel is safest. The only time I've ever been handed a vaccine sheet to fill out, I just flipped that puppy over and signed the waivor on the back. I don't think the person I handed it to even noticed.

[jbeamer]

I'll have to check out mdc board, thanks. My DD has gotten her required shots for up to 6 months except for Hep.B. I will probably start those at 1 year. I am concerned about MMR though. I will probably wait until she is about 3years before she gets that one. I like the idea of waiting until she is older and her immune system is supposedly stronger before giving her questionabl vaccines.

[starrynight]

I decided as of right now Eliza isn't getting any at all. I was going to give her dtap but I have looked into it some more and decided against it. I may change my mind when she is 1 or 2 years old but as of right now she will get nothing.

[kitmama]

So far, (ds is 5 mo) we have gone ahead with all the recommended vaccines- but we are dividing them up so that he gets no more than 3 "bugs" at a time. This means we go for the HIB, IPV and Pneumococcal on the even months, and the DTaP (a triple vaccine) on the odd months. We did do the Hep B, but we will not be doing the varicella.
I haven't decided yet about the MMR- I think I will try to have individual vaccines for that one, rather than the triple. Anyone have information or opinions on that one?

[essnce629]

I waited until my son was 7 months old before giving him any vaccines. My midwife suggested I wait until 6 months which I had also planned on doing. I had a homebirth, so the Hep B vaccine at birth was never even brought up (and I tested HepB negative anyway). At 7 months old my son got the first of the Hib and the Polio (IPV) vaccine. These are the only vaccines I feel are safe to give together. Just yesterday, now at 8 months old, my son received the first of the DTaP vaccines. I found a really great book called "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations" by Stephanie Cave, M.D. It's written by a doctor and she goes in depth on every vaccination as well as the diseases it's trying to prevent. The book is neither pro nor anti-vax. If you do choose to vaccinate, she recommends an alternative/delayed schedule with the first vaccination beginning at 4 months old. She even offers advice on how to minimize vaccination reactions, such as giving Vitamin A in the form of Cod Liver Oil and liquid Vitamin C on the day of the vaccination, and giving fruit juice immediately before and after the DTap vaccine. It's a great book and I highly recommend it. Having started at 7 months old, my son's vaccination schedule will look like this:

7 mo- Hib & IPV
8 mo- DTap
9 mo- Hib & IPV
10 mo- DTap
11 mo- Hib
12 mo- DTap
15 mo- Measles
20 mo- IPV
21 mo- DTap
27 mo- Mumps

Prevnar- undecided still, but in the book she recommends one dose at 2 years old
Rubella- Won't get (if I had a daugther, she would get it around puberty)
Hep B- closer to puberty
Varicella- closer to puberty if he doesn't get chickenpox naturally


***Latia
Conner 8/19/03
http://www.babiesonline.com/babies/a/aug2003angel

[Mami]

At this point ds has only gotten a few. But after some reactions, I started doing some research and he has not been vaxed since.

Most of my research came from MDC.com forum. They have excellent information on vaccines.

[hcocca]

Although our baby is not here yet, my husband (an immunologist) and I have decided not to have our son immunized until he is at least six months.

I have a question for others who have waited to not have their children -- have you had any issues with the hospital or your pediatrician when you told them that you didn't want the vaccines at that time or at all?

[Chad and Liz]

We vaccinated on schedule with our first daughter until 4 mo then stopped and won't do any more. Our second and any future children will not get any. The risks of the vaccine far outweigh the risk of possible diseases. Even the center for disease control (the ones who put out the recommended schedule) admit your child has a better chance of having an adverse reaction that catching the disease (just catching, not having problems from it) itself.

Also, there have been no studies* comparing vaccinated children against unvaccinated children. If vaccines are so great and they work so well, then what is the government and big pharma afraid of? What they might find perhaps?

*there was a small study done in the 70's outside the U.S. but it was only a few vaccines and the outcome was largely for unvaccinated

I do not feel vaccines are tested well enough for anyone to call them 'safe'. Only healthy people are allowed to participate in the trials, yet they say they are safe for the unhealthy. The test group is never watched long term, maybe a month at most, never years.

[julieakc]

Ok, please don't throw bombs at me, but I am a pro vaccinations. I can understand small delays in the schedule and/or spreading out the number of shots, but IMO I do not want to risk (albiet relatively small) my child contracting a serious and/or fatal disease that could easily have been prevented. So here is the other opinion:

While it is true that there is only a small risk for some of the diseases for which vaccinations exist...the risk is so small precisely because vaccines eliminated/greatly reduced that risk (for example polio and smallpox). And were in not for the fact that most of the population is vaccinated these diseases would be a much greater risk than they are.

Although your individual risk might be low...who knows about the people around you and your child. We live in the Los Angeles area and therefore there are a lot of people who travel internationally and/or were not born in the United States (and therefore may not have been vaccinated) so there is always that potential for exposure from someone you don't know.

Yes, there are possible side effects with vaccinations but (generally speaking) they are WAY less than the seriousness of contracting the disease which the vaccine protects against.

It would be horrible to lose a child from an illness that could have been prevented with a vacine...and this does happen.

To answer the question about side effects: No, DS (who has received all vaccines on the recommended schedule) has never had any adverse effects...I think once he was a little sleepy that afternoon (which may or may not have had to do with the vaccinations) but that's it.

[AnaC.]

>Ok, please don't throw bombs at me, but I am a pro
>vaccinations. I can understand small delays in the schedule
>and/or spreading out the number of shots, but IMO I do not
>want to risk (albiet relatively small) my child contracting a
>serious and/or fatal disease that could easily have been
>prevented. So here is the other opinion:
>
>While it is true that there is only a small risk for some of
>the diseases for which vaccinations exist...the risk is so
>small precisely because vaccines eliminated/greatly reduced
>that risk (for example polio and smallpox). And were in not
>for the fact that most of the population is vaccinated these
>diseases would be a much greater risk than they are.
>
>Although your individual risk might be low...who knows about
>the people around you and your child. We live in the Los
>Angeles area and therefore there are a lot of people who
>travel internationally and/or were not born in the United
>States (and therefore may not have been vaccinated) so there
>is always that potential for exposure from someone you don't
>know.
>
>Yes, there are possible side effects with vaccinations but
>(generally speaking) they are WAY less than the seriousness of
>contracting the disease which the vaccine protects against.
>
>It would be horrible to lose a child from an illness that
>could have been prevented with a vacine...and this does
>happen.
>
>To answer the question about side effects: No, DS (who has
>received all vaccines on the recommended schedule) has never
>had any adverse effects...I think once he was a little sleepy
>that afternoon (which may or may not have had to do with the
>vaccinations) but that's it.
>
>
>
>

I think you are totally right and totally support your point of view, thanks to vaccines is that thousands of kids are saved each year, you just have to see this charts taken from the book baby 411:

smallpox 1901 deaths : 48,164 2001 deaths: 0
hepatitis B 1901 deaths: 200,000 2001 deaths: 80,000

and on and on and on, I respect people who decide not to vaccinate their kids, but those who decide vaccinating theirs I think are taking the risk for those other babies who are not, I know my baby is been vaccinated and in that way I am doing my part to not having a come back of any dicease.

But again, everybody has their reasons and everybody is in its right to take any decisition they want to make.

[CAM7]

I recommend going to the Mothering . com board to check their forums on vaxing. You'll have a LOT of info to read up on vaxing... there are many mom's there that really know their stuff about non-vaxing.

Also... Texas has all three exemptions if you wish to opt out of vaxing. If a school is funded AT ALL with public funds (even most private ones are funded in some way) they must accept an exemption.

Go to mothering . com and you'll find plenty of info there... also... "Finding your Tribe" forum on that board will have other mom's in your area of the country that are like minded on the subject.

HTH!!

[masha12]

I firmly pro-vaccine and agree with everything the other pro-vaccine poster said.

As a follow-up to her post, I heard somewhere that vaccines are generally about 95% effective, meaning that out of 100 vaccinated people, 5 of them will not have developed immunity. This is acceptable because as long as 95% of the population is immune, the disease is not likely to spread.

But, the group immunity is diminished everytime a parent refuses to vaccinate their child. These parents are creating a bigger risk for my vaccinated children because they are increasing the pool of non-immune people coming in contact with my children and I have no way of knowing if they are in the 5% of the nonimmune vaccinated population.

As bad as I would feel if my unvaccinated child died or suffered permenant damage from a vaccine-preventable disease, I would feel even worse if my unvaccinated child transmitted the disease to another child and that child died or suffered permanent damage.

[sbrimer]

Being that I am a pediatric RN I to have taken necessary steps in the vaccination process. Each time my daughter is due for shots she only get 1 or two and then we make the journy back in the next month. therefore, we space them out over a few months. Yes it cost us more, but safety has to be a priority. There are way more vaccines out there then when I was her age.

I agree we do not need to overwhelm there immune system, but those who decide to wait on certain vaccination (Heb B, varricela and MMR) let me just put something out there. When you vaccinate yes you are vaccinating against the disease, but you are also vaccinating your child against other children who are sick or are are not immunized. We live in such a deverse population with people come from other countries everyday. Therefore, b/c these other countries do not follow the same guidlines as we do what they bring over can cause other children here in the states to become sick even though we do not have a problem.

Also when I was little I got the chickenpox b/c the vaccine wasent available. Well when you get the chickenpox it never goes away it layes dormant in your spinal tract. Therefore, when I had my daughter I had an epidural and b/c of this it aggrivated the nerve fibers that carried the dormant chickenpox therefor I got SHINGLES. try breastfeeding an infnt with shingles not very fun.

So I agree that there are way to many vaccines, but waiting can cause more harm and you dont know who in your childs class (preschool, day care) are immunized or have the disease and dosent know it. Spacing them out is the best. Just remember that know when a child enters jr. high/ high school and college the mennigitis vaccination is required or at least it is in PA and I know for collage in CA.

You are vaccinating against others. Be safe.

[o_mom]

>Also when I was little I got the chickenpox b/c the vaccine
>wasent available. Well when you get the chickenpox it never
>goes away it layes dormant in your spinal tract. Therefore,
>when I had my daughter I had an epidural and b/c of this it
>aggrivated the nerve fibers that carried the dormant
>chickenpox therefor I got SHINGLES. try breastfeeding an
>infnt with shingles not very fun.
>

The chickenpox vaccine does not prevent shingles. In fact, since the widespred vaccination of children for chickenpox, the number of cases of shingles in adults has risen.

>.... Just remember
>that know when a child enters jr. high/ high school and
>college the mennigitis vaccination is required or at least it
>is in PA and I know for collage in CA.
>

Also remember that you can file a waiver instead of getting the vaccinations if you so choose.

[mom2binsd]

I had originally looked at separating the MMR, not due to concerns about autism (and I'm a speech therapist who sees autism all the time and is very aware of the parents feelings about this and those who say it's not true, who knows really?), but because I had wanted to avoid as many combo vaccines as possible after reading Stephanie Cave's book, however, my ped was not able, nor was I able to locate any of the vaccines individually. We have vaccinated both our children on a schedule that spaced out the vaccines, but still provided necessary protection (ex. we have flown with each child when they were quite young and wanted to have the purtusis (can't spell)vaccine.Totally agree with waiting in Hep B esp when you know you aren't a carrier.

P.S. This is such a crazy topic these days, in our playgroup we avoid discussing it (and circumcision) as it seems almost too touchy and personal of a topic and yet what others choose to do can really impact your children (with respect to the vaccines not circumcision lol).

[Bean606]

I agree it is a very personal topic - we seriously considered not vaccinating, and then when we figured out our child care arrangements and knew our child would be in group care starting at about 6 months, we decided we had to do it, because a) we wanted our child protected against what other children might be carrying (his day care has a lot of children from other countries there who might have different vax schedules and didn't want him exposed without being vaccinated) and b) the day care would not accept a waiver, and we didn't want to do them all at once just before he started day care. When we were thinking about not doing it, someone pointed out the following to me: the people who don't vaccinate their children are counting on everyone else to vaccinate their children to avoid having their children get the disease. It isn't fair to ask other parents to put their children at risk with the vax, but not to take it with your own children when you know they will benefit from everyone else's vax. It should be a shared risk that the entire population takes because it is a public health issue. I was totally offended at the time, and still wouldn't put it in those terms, but the basic point is starting to ring true to me, especially now that we know several people who haven't vaccinated and are going to send their kids to public school.

[tnrnchick74]

Being that I am a pediatric RN I to have taken necessary steps in the vaccination process. Each time my daughter is due for shots she only get 1 or two and then we make the journy back in the next month. therefore, we space them out over a few months.

I agree we do not need to overwhelm there immune system, but those who decide to wait on certain vaccination (Heb B, varricela and MMR) let me just put something out there. When you vaccinate yes you are vaccinating against the disease, but you are also vaccinating your child against other children who are sick or are are not immunized. We live in such a deverse population with people come from other countries everyday. Therefore, b/c these other countries do not follow the same guidlines as we do what they bring over can cause other children here in the states to become sick even though we do not have a problem.


You are vaccinating against others. Be safe.

(sorry to the person I quoted as I trimmed the quote a little bit). I'm also an RN, working in neonatal. I am pro-vaccination as well, though I have mixed feelings about the combo vaccines. On one hand they do limit the number of injections, but especially the 5-in-1 vaccines can be VERY tough on the kiddo.

I received all of my immunizations according to schedule, and even got MORE vaccines thanks to the military...and yet I still never developed total immunity to Rubella. And I had to have 2 series of the Hep B in order for the labs to show and immune response. Vaccines are not perfect, but they have a proven track record of limiting epidemics of certain infections.

In regards to my little boy, due in June, I will give the recommended schedule, including Hep B...but will try to space out the number of vaccines given at one time and not use the 5-in-1 combos. Even spacing out by a week helps the kiddo feel better...and if you have a reaction its a little easier to determine which component is the probable culprit.

I have dealt with many parents who decided not to vaccinate. That's a very personal decision that each parent must make. As an RN I am supportive of those parents who have decided not to vaccinate for whatever reason, as long as they are truly making informed consent.

[CAM7]

I'm an 'older' mom... my oldest daughter was born in the late 80's and when I discovered how many vaxes were added to the schedule since then I was appalled. Our youngest are 2 and 3.

We're not vaxing. We've researched plenty.

MDC is an excellent source for info and for hooking up with other like minded parents for support. If you are not going to vax you'll need it.

Also an excellent site for info is "insidevaccines . com" ... they also have a discussion board with other very educated parents who don't vax. They have been helpful to us...

For a previous poster... Texas has a 'philosophical' type exemption that you can obtain so you don't have to file a religious exemption.