Parents Are Still Conflicted About Vaccination Schedules

Vaccinating isn't just important for yourself- through herd immunity, it protects those that can't be vaccinated, such as babies and the immunocompromised. Someone with cancer or a pregnant woman can't receive vaccines and children that aren't vaccinated by choice will cause outbreaks of preventable illnesses that these people are susceptible to.

I don't understand why parents who vaccinate are afraid of getting the diseases from people who don't? The idea of vaccinating is to build an immunity to a disease. That said, they shouldn't be thought of as "immunizations" anymore as vaccinations don't immunize (build a lifetime immunity). I'm happy to see people referring to them as vaccinations now instead. We vaccinated our kids right on schedule, but it killed me to give them the chickenpox vaccine when it first came out. It didn't have a track record in the US, and I told my (then) ped that. She said it had a great track record in Japan. Come to find out later that it wasn't lasting, and people were getting chicken pox when they were older -- when it is more dangerous to have it. I desperately tried to find someone who had chickenpox when my kids were 1-3, but couldn't find anyone b/c they'd all been recently vaccinated. My son actually got chickenpox from the vaccine (verified by the dr), but my others had been vaccinated the same day. Fast forward to just 2 years ago when my teen needed a DTaP booster. That was not fun. He had nightmares that night, nightsweats, muscle cramps, and was sick from it. Now that all 3 kids are older, I check the state school requirements to see if they need the booster our doc says they're due for. If they don't, we probably won't get it. I will probably titer them to see what their immunity is if the doc insists on another booster. I have gotten 3 MMR vax b/c they kept testing my immunity with each pregnancy and I tested not immune. The 3rd pregnancy I told them no. The flu shot seems like such a crap shoot from my research. It's only made from the top 3 flu strains from the previous year. However, if you got any of those strains last year, you're already protected because of your body's natural immunity. If the strains from last year mutate, the shot won't help you anyway. Instead, we focus on being proactive with building immunity and staying healthy. Lots of random thoughts, but really it comes down to this: let's trust each other to do the research and decide what's best for our own child. :)

A child across the street died of meningitis the year before my oldest was born. Two years before that, they lost one to measles a couple blocks away. My mom had both mumps and measles as a child, and it wasn't pretty- she missed all of kindergarden. My oldest goes to school with an unvaxxed child, who missed physical education and recess for six months due to complications from having measles- which kept her out of school for two weeks to begin with. I had a college housemate who nearly died of chickenpox. Whooping cough is endemic in the high school in the next county over. My great-grandfather died of influenza. Heck yes, we vax. These diseases are here, and potentially dangerous. If I can even just lessen their impact with a simple jab, considering the extremely low rate of serious complications- far lower than the diseases I have mentioned here- I am all for it.

It's misleading to write that parents are conflicted about vaccine schedules if almost 90% of them are on board. If we were talking about approval ratings or elections, those numbers would mean a victory of unprecedented proportions -- and a devastating defeat for the 13% minority. (But since we're talking about our children's health and the need to maintain herd immunity, those numbers do need to rise.)I recommend reading Seattle Mama Doc's related piece for some balance: http://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org/most-pa... Here's a critical excerpt regarding the Pediatrics study:

Seattle Mama Doc's Glass Half Full Findings:

-Only 2% of all the families interviewed refused all vaccines for their children. Two percent simply isn’t much.13% of parents reported following an alternative vaccination schedule, with most families stating they only refused certain vaccines (53% of them). This means that nearly 90% of parents reported following the CDC recommendations. That’s nearly an A minus!

Of the “alternative vaccinators,” a large minority of parents reported having initially following the recommended schedule.

-55% of families that were on alternative schedule ended up giving all of the recommended vaccines but on a delayed schedule.

-Of the “alternative vaccinators,” only 8% of that group followed a well-known alternative schedule such as that offered up by Dr Bob Sears or Dr Donald Miller.

-Several families free-text responded that they had worked with their child’s physician” to develop the schedule.” Fantastic. A true partnership between the patient and physician and one that is transparent and necessary for catch-up immunizations.

We did the first 2 scheduled then stopped after my son had a bad reaction. I'm not comfortable with the vaccines because they have SO many additives in them and adding to a child's body when their neurological system isn't fully developed doesn't jive for me. Homeopathic medicine has treatments that actually WORK for any of the illnesses we vaccinate for. They just don't make money for big pharmaceutical companies so we don't hear much about them. I'm not granola. I drive an SUV, I shop at the GAP and I've just had enough of my doctor's advice on most things.

Yes, we had our children vaccinated. Measles and chickenpox never concerned me, but polio, whooping cough, and diphtheria did. Our school did not allow unvaccinated children in the classrooms, for which I thanked God, fasting. While I'm sure families who do not vaccinate feel that society has no right to force them to, I am also sure that I would not have allowed my children near an unvaccinated child who might have killed them with a disease our scientists worked hard to eradicate. Thank you, Jonas Salk, etc, for keeping our children alive.

DH is strongly pro-vax while I'm on the fence. Before dd (5mos) was born I told him if she has a bad reaction, I'm not going to try to narrow down what she might have reacted to, she won't get anymore of whatever she had at the last visit, whether that's one or two she won't finish or five or six. The worst reaction so far was redness and swelling from the PCV, and I think I was bothered by it more than she was, considering she didn't react when I rubbed it a little. Because she only got two shots that day, it was easy to figure out. And no, I'm not going to refuse the next PCV, but I will watch her more closely after her next one.

As someone who does not have kids I'm still confused about the chickenpox vaccine. When did *that* happen? I remember people exposing their kids to chickenpox when I was young so they'd get it and get it over with. What happened?

I'm in the 13% - vaccinating but using a spaced schedule so there are no more than 2 shots every month. I did a lot of reading to get here and I still feel conflicted and confused. I have a basic distrust of the western medical system. But I'm aware that having the population immunized is what eradicated many of these diseases and having pockets of the population unvaccinated risks bringing them back. I live in an area that has a low vaccination rate and we have had cases of whooping cough in the county several years running. I caught it while I was pregnant because my own booster was out of date. So my daughter does get her shots, but I deal with the hassle of extra appoinents because I don't really trust the test protocols. This is probably not the hardest parenting decision I will make, but it sure it a hot button topic!.