My children (ages 5 years and 7 months) are unvaccinated because I feel the risks outweigh the benefits at this point in time. But lately I've been under a lot of pressure from my mom to at least get the baby vaccinated againt whooping cough (pertussis) as there have been some outbreaks around here. SOoo I'm hoping to get some insight here from you guys as to what to do??? I'm mostly worried about my daughter since she's at a higher risk of it really affecting her since she's still a baby. But then again we're a pretty healthy family, I nurse and eat great. She's had one stuffy nose so far and that's it but her brother is in kindergarten and really gets exposed to A LOT. Anyways....I'm still definitely leaning towards NOT vaccinating her unless I hear a convincing enough reason why to. So yeah, I'm just hoping for some thoughts/opinions from ya'll and wondering if anyone else has been struggling with this decision??
Hi! My 21 month old is unvaccinated. Not had any worries about pertussis so far. My doctor even wanted me to get a booster as I no longer have immunity. I don't worry about her having it. It is treatable and only life-threatening in the very smallest minority of cases. One of my forum friends recently suffered through her infant getting pertussis. He was in the hospital for a bit for oxygen (and I think dehydration) but pulled through. And now he is immune for life. Everyone else in the family was put on antibiotics to avoid getting it. They are all fine now.
Mama, you're doing the right thing. A lot of drug companies pay to "shut parents up" who have children that had reactions to these vaccines. I work with kids who now have autism as a result of a reaction to thimerosal, which is a mercury-based preservative that is STILL put into vaccines. They all had 104-105 fevers and within a day or two lost all of the language they had and started doing strange behaviors. A lot of these vaccinations are for illnesses that are curable. Vaccines make the immune system weaker in my own opinion. For an example, there is a mutated flu virus going around and a lot of the people who have it are the same people who got vaccinated. Go figure... I look at vaccines as a poison. I wouldn't put it in my body and I wouldn't even think about putting it into a child's body. I'm not a parent, but I've heard a lot of stories from parents who have children with autism... I hope I helped.
My son was damaged by the immunizations. He went from being a totally healthy baby to one who was allergic to everything in sight. He was losing weight. He developed reflux and asthma within 2 weeks of receiving the prenar immunization. And the worst part of it is our doctor told us this was a required vaccine. Turns out it was not required at the time. We could have skipped it without any problem. Now, almost five years later, after 2 years of probiotics and herbal treatment, he is now able to eat almost everything. He no longer has asthma or reflux. He does however, have hyperactivity. Is this related to the vaccine? We will never know. But he will never ave another vaccine if I can stop it. We now have a religious exemption. Since we homeschool we don't really have to prove anything to anyone anyway. He was one sick little baby for a long time. Kathi
I was wondering about this too. I'm due April 16th and I'm wondering, if I choose not to vaccinate, will it affect my ability to send my child to public schools? How does that work?
It's different in every state, but every state offers a medical exemption. Most offer a religious exemption, and some offer a philisophical exemption. All you have to do is flip over the vaccination form they give you during registration and sign that part. If there is an outbreak of anything anywhere in the school district, your child can be forced out of school for up to four months, but that is very rare, and worth it, IMHO.
religious exemptions are very common these days, so you wouldn't have any issues besides doctors trying to convince you that you're a "bad" parent because you're not vaccinating your baby.
I've been struggling with this myself. It seems everybody has an opinion. I'm strongly leading towards not because of the associated (though hushed) risks, and the correlation with Autism. But then if my child contracted one of the illnesses and was seriously ill or died i'd likely blame myself, as would everyone else who knew they weren't vaccinated..
I'm probibly not going to have my children vaccinated. My dad gets on to me for feeling that way, saying it's a small risk of a side effect! "Like getting small pox or polio is a large risk?" which is what I usually ask him during our debates. I do worry a bout the whole public education issue, but if it comes to it, I'll homeschool them or private school them until they are old enough to make a decision on their own. However, I don't think it's as big of a deal as some people make it out to be. I bet that most school now a days are accepting the idea of not vaccinating. Especially in this "new age" world full of vitamins and herb specialists. It's becoming common culture to go organic, and these vaccines that cause issues in almost half of the kids that have them, are not organic. I say exercise your right as an American citizen and as a parent. If you don't want to vaccinate, don't do it.
My feelings about her contracting a vaxxed disease, after much thought and research: Our society has such advances medical knowledge and facilities, I know she would be fine. And most of those diseases are very very VERY rarely deadly. And if they are, it's also likely there is a good likelihood of malnutrition, a weakened immune system, other diseases at the same time, no access to medical care. If my child, who is fed good nutritious foods, takes immunoboosters, avoids stress, gets enough sleep, and has access to good medical care, gets one of those diseases and STILL has complications/dies, more than likely the vaccination wouldn't have stopped it.
You have to remember also that many of these vaccines do not work. Kids have been immunized against mumps and still get mumps, chicken pox and still get chicken pox, measles and still get measles. They damage our children's health and they don't work. Yeah, I'll risk getting an almost nonexistent disease before I'll give my child another vaccine. Kathi
