Navigating Vaccinations

So far navigating the choices around pregnancy and our baby have been pretty straightforward. We've chosen to do a water birth rather than the hospital, we've decided to do a combination of cloth and disposable diapers, I want to breast feed rather than not. For the most part, things have been pretty much "this or that" decisions. Vaccinations are a different story.

Instead of "either this or that" decisions, there are many choices you can make and many consequences for every choice along the way. Educating myself about vaccinating feels about the same as educating myself on politics. You can research and learn about a topic, and then compare opinions to the facts, but you never feel like you know every side of the story, and sometimes you never feel like you can understand enough to take a stance. That's how I feel about vaccines.

Baby with measles.

Here's an example:
The MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine schedule for Washington County is 12 months or 15 months and 4-6 years. All three of these diseases are not life threatening and once you have had any of these you are immune for life. There is a possibility that any of these viruses could lead to complications that could be life altering or threatening, but the complications are about the same as if you were to get the flu or chicken pox.

Baby with Chickenpox (Varicella)

The MMR vaccine itself can be broken into 3 separate vaccines, but often is not. Most will not have any adverse reactions to the vaccine, but, just like getting sick from the viruses, there are risks. The lists of possible diseases and reactions associated with these three vaccines is much longer than the list for the viruses themselves. This is also the vaccine that has recently been linked with a high rate of autism - this hasn't been extensively studied, so there isn't a sure connection, but more research is showing the link between the two, and the connection seems to be specific to the combined vaccine rather than the separated one. This doesn't even address what is actually "in" the vaccines - many contain animal byproducts and harmful toxins like mercury.

We could choose to do the normal schedule of the combined vaccine, we could do the normal schedule but separate the vaccines, we could do a delayed schedule and do the combined or separated in which case we'd need to decide how long we wanted to delay this for, or we could just not do it at all and if our kid gets sick we'll take care of it.

The last element is the combination of vaccines. This is one of several and many are administered at the same time. So if you child does have an adverse reaction, it could be because of one of these three vaccines - or it could be the Hep B, the Hib, the Polio, the Hep A, the PCV7, the Varicella or the flu shots that you got all together at your last appointment - because they do them all at once. Apparently this is normal.

If we choose to do anything besides the normal schedule we are then faced with a new set of consequences. Schools and daycares in Oregon have laws about the number of each vaccine kids must have in order to be enrolled in school. There are ways to have this requirement waived - you can sign a paper that says you are aware of the fact that you are neglecting your child (yeah it's actually worded that way) or you can say that it is because of religious reasons.
We are also very limited on pediatricians. Many will not accept patients that have not been vaccinated on the normal schedule and will not tolerate skipping vaccines or delaying them.

If we choose not to do the normal vaccination schedule - and we will because I like to keep things complicated - we have to live with the consequences of our choices. If our little girl does get measles when she's 5 (there has recently been an outbreak so it's very possible) I have to be informed enough to recognize and treat it. I also need to have a pediatrician that won't lecture me and neglect my kid if I take her to urgent care.

With the vaccinations I agree with, I have to live with the guilt of what I did to my baby if she ends up having a reaction to the vaccine. I do think that there is validity to vaccinations which is why I don't want to decide just to skip all of them in general. I just think that it's more complicated than "everybody does it so it must be okay."

There is some hope. I did some research today and have found some great resources. First babycenter. While the website itself tends to keep neutral and follow the recommendations of doctors in their articles, they host multiple forums where ideas and information are freely exchanged and you can find support nor matter how radical or how traditional you choose to be (I'm no more interested in being criticized for having my child on a normal vaccine schedule than I am for having her on an abnormal one). I have been a member of a natural unmedicated childbirth forum since the beginning of my pregnancy and have learned more from other women in my shoes than I have in any of the books or websites I've used so far. Personal experience and a collective of research and education is pretty valuable. The vaccination board is called none/selective/delayed vaccinations and is open to anyone to join.

It was through this board that I found a list of family practitioners and pediatricians that respect and support parents' rights to choose what is best for their children. I found out that one of them is not only close to us, but is in network for our insurance!

Here's their website: http://www.drpaul.md/index.html
The vaccine schedule he recommends on his website looks much more along the lines of what I've been thinking so far. I made an appointment to meet him and his staff and to discuss our ideas about what we want for our child.

Overall I would prefer that my baby not get sick at all so I feel like I'm battling the lesser of two evils in making any decisions about vaccines. As I learn and figure out a clearer picture of what I want to do I will share. I hope that a boring long post like this is helpful for other mothers who are in the midst of making this decision as well.