Vitamin A (or cod liver oil) before and after vaccinating

[Etty]

Has anyone followed Dr. Sears' advice to administer Vitamins A and C immediately before and after vaccinations? Vitamin C is intended as a general immune system boost, while Vitamin A has that value as well as providing neurological protections, or so that's the theory (as I remember it from having read a few days ago). We have just started vaccinating my 9 month old. We've done Dtap once, and will be adding Prevnar 13, and the Hib vacc soon, one at a time, spaced out by one month (for each *different* vacc; repeat vacc's will be spaced out by at least 2 months)...

Can anyone recommend a high quality, reliably mercury-free cod liver oil, and offer suggestions on how to get a 9 mo old to eat it (presumably I'll add to his "solid" food... but I kind of expect him to gag...) As for the Vitamin C, I have Hyland's tablets, which seem to work fine.

Also, any thoughts on the efficacy of these Vitamins for this purpose are welcomed. ~ Thank you!

[mamalissy]

I don't know about Dr. Sear's advice about cod liver oil, but my 1.5 year old has no problem taking it, and in fact takes it straight off the spoon and says "more".  At first I was adding it to food, but then if she good the food on herself or on me, I was smelling cod live oil for the rest of the day.  You might want to try starting mixing it with a small bite of food your child likes, apple sauce or something maybe, and then once the are used to the taste just giving it to them straight.  Just a thought.  Oh and we use nordic naturals, as that is what the ped recomended. 

[nia82]

We use Nordic Naturals and my son actually wants more of it. We don't start before the age of 2, so I'm using the children's version now and Nordic Naturals Berries as his vitamin. He also gets 5,000IU carlsons vitamin D3 drops for 2 weeks with it. It was another recommendation, I think Russell Blaylock. I can see why, we always take lots of vitamin D3 when sick, which rarely ever happens to DS. I guess if you start vaccines earlier, you should look into Nordic Naturals for infants. I would still do a large amount of vitamin D3 drops though. There is also some supplement called vaccishield, it has all those vitamins, but in far too little doses in my opinion.

[mama1219]

I would be very careful about high dose vitamins with vaccinations.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/2/586.full

Study showed increased mortality in girls given high dose vitamin A with vaccinations.

[Etty]

Thanks for mentioning that. I'm generally quite wary of vitamin supplementation, especially for my baby (and despite the latest fad to give very high Vit D supplements to infants... there's enough research on it that the AAP has made recommendation a priority... and yet if you dig, there's also controversy on the meaning of the research. My naturopath affirms that too. Are low Vit D levels a cause or a symptom?, etc.). I'm using cod liver oil, which is at least a whole food, and I'm not going over the recommended dosage... Still you've reminded me to be wary. Too many unknowns. I think I'll leave it off at 5 days of the cod liver oil (rather than the ten Dr. Sears recommends). The Vitamin C seems less of a concern to me.

[Etty]

This explains the Vitamin A issue further. There's a lot that's not understood. Very interesting. Apparently Vitamin A acts as an adjuvant, possibly amplifying the "non-specific effects" of vaccines, and might be beneficial in the case of some types of vaccines, possibly harmful in the case of others...

"This suggestion is in line with our hypothesis; if vitamin A amplifies ongoing immune reactions, it is conceivable that this might in some instances be beneficial, in other instances harmful, depending on the type of immune response that the disease elicits."

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/32/5/822.full

It's also probably worth noting they seem to be talking about MUCH higher doses (i.e., 50,000 IU, etc.) than Dr. Sears is recommending (1,500 IU).