When Brandon and I had Kadon we did everything our pediatrician told us to. We assumed that she knew best. She was the one with the medical degree, right?! He is fully immunized, had all of his well checks, etc etc. We loved our pediatrician and had no reason to not trust her, she was great. VERY mainstream doc. Anytime he was slightly sick she threw a prescription at me for him. Sometimes I would walk out of the appointment and throw the prescription away, I did not want him always having medicine. But I never questioned vaccines. I did what most parents do, just gave them to him because I was told it was what was best for him. {1st children are the guinea pigs. Poor things. Thanks goodness I am the baby and my sis got to be the guinea pig for my mom ;)}
When we had Garner I started questioning the vaccines, but NO ONE I knew was. Every one told me I was crazy for even considering not giving them to him. I heard it so many times that when he was born we did it again. He is fully vaccinated to the age of 2 then I put my foot down and said no more. Even Brandon questioned me. I told him to just trust me and let me do some research before we did any more, he agreed.
After doing just a small amount of research and reading I knew right away when we got pregnant with Porter that he would hardly get any vaccines. Brandon more than agreed once I showed him everything.
I have had moments of mom guilt for not being so pro-active on this topic when Kadon was born. I also used Johnson & Johnson and Gerber then too....which has NEVER been used with Porter...and NEVER will!
This journey has been non stop since then, I can't read enough or watch enough!
For Brandon and me, the risks of the vaccines far out weigh the risk of the diseases. We feel like our kids chances of being harmed by one of the hundreds of side affects from the vaccine are more likely than them actually getting which ever illness. As an infant Porter was immunized for pertussis because Kadon was in kindergarten and we were around so many kids all the time, but that is it.
Porter is by far our healthiest child. I don't want to jinx it, but he has only been sick a couple of times in 2 1/2 years.
I have had many discussions with others on this topic...even a few arguments ;) but I don't judge another parent for deciding to vaccinate their children. The part that gets me frazzled is the lack of desire to educate themselves. I was not expecting to learn so many scary things about what is in the vaccines and the possible side effects, I was blown away. I think a lot more people would be too if they did their research. I think if you are educated on BOTH SIDES of this topic and you still decide to vaccinate your child...I respect the hell out of that. That means regardless of which way you go, you are making that choice to protect your child. You can't argue with that! I would never tell another parent they were making the wrong choice, and get crazy mad when some one tries telling me that I am making the wrong choice. There is not a wrong choice!
A few tidbits:
- Mercury poisoning & autism symptoms are almost identical
- chicken pox vaccine was created to save employers 450 billion $ a year so that parents wouldn't be taking a week of work
- the flu shot contains 50,000 ppb of mercury....if something contains 2 ppb of mercury (like those energy efficient light bulbs) it must be thrown away at a hazardous waste site YIKES! No thanks.
- docs are not taught about all of the possible side effects of vaccines in medical school
- most studies saying that vaccines are completely safe are paid for by pharmaceutical companies and/or the government. Oh sure, because they are trust worthy. Hmph.
Vaccines are a topic, along with the government, food, ingredients in food and products that I could seriously go on and on about. I won't, but I could. Grrrr. When is America going to wake up?
The next book I am going to read is Vaccine Epidemic I will do a post about it when I am done.
Check out this old post for a few good others.... Would love to chat about this if anyone is up for it.....:)
{side note...we no longer see the wonderful pediatrician that Kadon and Garner went to. Ha. She was great and we did like her, but she was too mainstream for me. We now have an even better one that supports my choices with vaccines and medication (homeopathic/holistic remedies), plus he says "Moms know best" I heart him!}
