I'm wondering:
On the forums, I found quite a few stories of moms that have vaxed older kids, but regret that decision and are now not vaxing/selectively vaxing/delayed vaxing their younger kids.
Anybody around here who went that path in the other direction?
Starting out as not vaxing/selectively vaxing/delayed vaxing, but now fully vaxing?
Yep. My oldest was vaxed on schedule, but we stopped after a year. We were staunchly non-vax for about 5 years, but the birth of my third child triggered a series of events that led me to question everything I thought a knew (its a long-ish story), and that led to me researching all over again with a fresh perspective. Initially, I had planned on getting my middle child up-to-date on a very slow schedule (she was just turning 3 and hadn't had any vaxes yet), but it was emotionally traumatic for her, so I decided it would be better to get the shots out of the way quicker. My oldest only needed a few shots to be up-to-date. With my newborn, I had planned on doing a very slow schedule. We started out just doing just doing one vax at his 2 month well-visit, but the more I researched, I came to the conclusion that there is little benefit to delaying, so at that point I decided to pretty much follow the schedule.
... but the birth of my third child triggered a series of events that led me to question everything I thought a knew (its a long-ish story), and that led to me researching all over again with a fresh perspective.....
I know that with a kid, you don't always have time to write, but if you feel like telling the story and have the time, I'd be really interested in learning about what kinds of events can propel such a change of mind.
I think going from vaxing to non-vaxing is often easily explainable: you read / hear something about the risks of vaxing, you get worried, you stop because it makes you feel safer.
Somehow, I suspect that the reasons for going back into the other direction are a helluva lot more complex.
Yeah, its rather complex, LOL. It started out with me trying to clear group b strep; I had been positive with my older two children, so I decided to try natural methods to clear it, which did indeed work. However, my midwife warned me that GBS recolonizes very quickly, so I should get antibiotics during labor anyway.
My labor was very long and difficult, and I spent most of it at home. Between the time I got to the hospital and when I gave birth there wasn't time to do the full course of antibiotics, so when I started running a fever it was plain that not only had the GBS re-colonized, but I passed it on to my baby. He was immediately taken to NICU to get started on antibiotics, and it was caught quickly enough where they were able to clear the bacteria before it caused any ill effects. He had to stay in NICU the entire time, so I had nothing else to do but lay around and think. I was angry with myself for putting my baby in danger by thinking that natural healing was inherently better than conventional methods, which made me really start to doubt the choices I had made in other areas... namely vaccinating.
Mind you, I had read and researched my tail off for years and knew every non-vax argument backwards and forwards, but I decide it was time to look more closely at the other side and see what made them tick. The new book The Panic Virus had just come out, and it really is a good book. There were quite a few references to Paul Offit's books, so I (grudgingly) decided to read those, too. By the time I was done, it hit me: I did not understand the difference between good science and psuedoscience, so my next goal was to learn the difference. So, in a fit of postpartum weirdness I contacted Paul Offit himself to get some clarification on some things. He was incredibly kind and helpful, and it hit me that he (along with the nameless faceless people at the CDC and AAP) was a parent, too. These people weren't just making recommendations for my children, but also for their own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc.
When you've thought one way for so many years, its hard to undo that. I was wreck by this time, stubbornly wanting to cling to what I thought I knew, but as the saying goes: you can't un-ring a bell. I went back and read through every non-vax source I had ever used and began to see the flaws and subtle sleight of hand. I was still to afraid to follow The Schedule, so I started out with the intention of doing one vaccine at at time, in order of priority. But as I kept re-researching, I didn't see a logical reason to delay for so long, aside from the hep b vax, which I am, more than comfortable putting off. We did get a late start so my kids are still a little behind, but our doctor has been awesome about helping us with a catch-up schedule.
I am a former anti vax/delayed mom who is now more or less fully vaccinating my kids.
I don't have much time to type out all my reasons for the change, but much of them are similar to those described by the pp. I had a really fast labor(1hr) with my 3rd child and she was born before the midwife could get there. Everything was ok and she was fine, but it really shook me up. If anything had gone wrong, she might not be here today and that experience really lead me to take a second look at some of the other choices I was making.
Basically I feel like we are more at risk now due to lifestyle changes. I am no longer a SAHM and will be putting my youngest in daycare within the year. My oldest attends public school now and my middle chid will start next year.
We did not vax either of our kids, and this decision was based on our lifestyle at the time (I was at home with the kids, we live in a smallish community). DD also had some health/allergy issues early on that made me question whether adding vaccines to the mix was in her best interest.
At our kids' last yearly checkups (they are very recently 6 and 3), we talked about it, and decided we're going to do the Quadracel (DTap) over the next year with both of them, then MMR. We're hoping that they get chicken pox on their own. If they don't, we'll talk about it later on. This is based on the fact that our lifestyle has changed: I'm going back to work, the kids are in school/preschool, and in four years' time, we're going around the world for a year as a family, and they will need a whole bunch of other vaccines, and I'd rather space them out a bit. Having kids that were not vaccinated no longer made sense for our lifestyle.
I never believed in the OMG Vaccines = worst thing ever; I just didn't see the need to bombard them so young, with so many different things. At the time, I was comfortable with our odds, but as our lifestyle has changed, I am less comfortable with the odds.
We did not vax either of our kids, and this decision was based on our lifestyle at the time (I was at home with the kids, we live in a smallish community). DD also had some health/allergy issues early on that made me question whether adding vaccines to the mix was in her best interest.
At our kids' last yearly checkups (they are very recently 6 and 3), we talked about it, and decided we're going to do the Quadracel (DTap) over the next year with both of them, then MMR. We're hoping that they get chicken pox on their own. If they don't, we'll talk about it later on. This is based on the fact that our lifestyle has changed: I'm going back to work, the kids are in school/preschool, and in four years' time, we're going around the world for a year as a family, and they will need a whole bunch of other vaccines, and I'd rather space them out a bit. Having kids that were not vaccinated no longer made sense for our lifestyle.
I never believed in the OMG Vaccines = worst thing ever; I just didn't see the need to bombard them so young, with so many different things. At the time, I was comfortable with our odds, but as our lifestyle has changed, I am less comfortable with the odds.
This sums up how our family feels too.
FWIW, my 6 yr old and 4 yr old are currently getting caught up on the DTaP and MMR. So far, we've had no issues.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for starting this thread! We've never vax'd any of our kids -- due to a strong family history of autoimmune diseases -- but over the past winter our youngest developed asthma out of the blue & he's been in & out of the hospital 4 times since December. We finally have that under control, but our FP & I had a few long talks about it and we've decided to very slowly start vaxing.
I am terrified. Our oldest ds has a speech delay and sensory issues, our dd has juvenile RA and I have RA as well and I'm just so scared that these will damage their immune systems [and mine] down the line. I feel so torn because the youngest is only 15 months old now -- he's so helpless in all of this -- and we're doing it for his benefit mostly; in case we catch anything, hopefully the vaxes will at least make the disease less severe, and thus less likely to land him in the hospital. But how do I reconcile that with the damage this might do to my older 2? I would never forgive myself if something happened to them.
I'm down with the idea that as our lifestyles change we change along with them, but was it easy or hard for those of you going from non-vax to vax? I'm having such a moral dilemma about this. On the one hand, it's a no-brainer, on the other if anything happens the fault is 100% mine for giving the ok.
I guess that's the leap of faith we're taking. So thanks for listening, sorry to highjack, and thank you OP for starting this very timely thread!
Jen
Asthma is an autoimmune disorders and so is RA. Autoimmune disorders happen because of the genetic defect in HLA.
So, people had them long before vaccination was practiced.
My younger son has asthma and we do flu vacine without fail every year. Any sort of cold puts him on steroids as is.
You are not damaging your older kids. I have a rare from of RA....I can;t imagine suffering from measles or chicken pox on top of it.
I had mumps at 18 and almost killed me.
Vaccines, like everything else have risks, but as person who have seen people die long sad deaths from Hep B and few other things....I believe that benefit outweig the risks
Thank you, thank you, thank you for starting this thread! We've never vax'd any of our kids -- due to a strong family history of autoimmune diseases -- but over the past winter our youngest developed asthma out of the blue & he's been in & out of the hospital 4 times since December. We finally have that under control, but our FP & I had a few long talks about it and we've decided to very slowly start vaxing.
I am terrified. Our oldest ds has a speech delay and sensory issues, our dd has juvenile RA and I have RA as well and I'm just so scared that these will damage their immune systems [and mine] down the line. I feel so torn because the youngest is only 15 months old now -- he's so helpless in all of this -- and we're doing it for his benefit mostly; in case we catch anything, hopefully the vaxes will at least make the disease less severe, and thus less likely to land him in the hospital. But how do I reconcile that with the damage this might do to my older 2? I would never forgive myself if something happened to them.
I'm down with the idea that as our lifestyles change we change along with them, but was it easy or hard for those of you going from non-vax to vax? I'm having such a moral dilemma about this. On the one hand, it's a no-brainer, on the other if anything happens the fault is 100% mine for giving the ok.
I guess that's the leap of faith we're taking. So thanks for listening, sorry to highjack, and thank you OP for starting this very timely thread!
Jen
I've increased the number of vaxes for my children, but that's the only change I've made over my parenting years.
One fundamental question: What is the ROLE of a vaccine?
To me, a selective vaxer, and to public health authorities, the obvious answer is to protect children from getting and spreading particular diseases.
But deeper that that, I view vaccines as necessary only to prevent diseases that are VERY life-threatening and easily communicable.
To the public health authorities that define the term "fully vaccinated," the role of vaccines seems to be to eliminate particular diseases entirely---just because we can--even if transmission requires more than just sharing classroom space, and even if severity and fatalities are rare (Hep A, for instance, which is "required" for public school attendance in my state. HPV, Hep B, and varicella would be other examples in my book). In other words, I don't support the Centers for Disease Controls liberal application of vaccinations.
Here is a blog post that articulates my own view well (no, not ver batims/word for word, so no nitpicking it, please).
It is because of this core disagreement that I don't ever see myself "fully" vaccinating my children.
Kanna, what is the schedule of recommended vaccinations in Germany? Do you have a link (in English, please 
) ? I'm just curious whether or not my children would be "fully" vaccinated to German standards. The U.S. supposedly recommends/requires more vaccines than any other western country.
Hep A is actually rather easy to catch. It take one kid, unwashed hands after use of bathroom and doorknob.
I think anyone who plan to be sexually active should get Hep B before doing so.
I have very mixed feeling about HPV at the moment.
I'm wondering why, if this is true, that we in Canada don't have Hep A on our vaccination schedule. I'll admit I haven't looked into this vaccine, It's not on our schedule so I assumed it wasn't important.
Hep A is actually rather easy to catch. It take one kid, unwashed hands after use of bathroom and doorknob.
Perhaps because Hep B has more serious consequences and Canadain authorities did not feel that Hep A was that dangerous.
this is a great thread and it is wonderful to hear these things being talked about with out argument or guilt being sent back and forth. i am with my 1st baby (or babies in my case) so i dont have a older child to compare to, but i have gone back and forth alot of what i think is best based on my reading. currently we are just doing things delayed a bit to not overload small bodies. i feel good about things so far and im glad i dont have school age children in the house becasue that for me would bring up a lot more things to think and worry about.
i look forward to reading more from this thread.
Jugs, i really wanted to applaud your thinking and willingness to learn and listen to both sides of an issue. You sound like an amazing mother. It is our often inability to see both sides or willingness to change or long held beliefs that send us so astray. I hope i have the same willingness and drive as i raise my babes.
SO glad I found this thread! It feels like it's moving in a really positive direction--lots of learning and sharing without confrontation. I was totally anti-vax before my son was born and did all kinds of research to support my position. I held out and didn't vaccinate at all up until my son was 6 months old. At that point, I started feeling uneasy with my decision. I'm not really sure what changed, but something inside me definitely shifted and I began considering vaccinating. Also, by that point I had started a home day care center, so my son was being exposed to quite a few other kiddos and we also spent a few months traveling in South America. We started late and are taking it slow, but I plan on doing almost all of the required vaccines. I still have hesitations but I decided that following my instinct was the best thing I could do to protect my little one. It's wonderful to hear about other's experiences moving back and forth across the vaxx lines!
Fridgeart--Do tell more about this round the world family trip! It's always been a dream of mine....
Asthma is an autoimmune disorders and so is RA. Autoimmune disorders happen because of the genetic defect in HLA.
So, people had them long before vaccination was practiced.
My younger son has asthma and we do flu vacine without fail every year. Any sort of cold puts him on steroids as is.
You are not damaging your older kids. I have a rare from of RA....I can;t imagine suffering from measles or chicken pox on top of it.
I had mumps at 18 and almost killed me.
Vaccines, like everything else have risks, but as person who have seen people die long sad deaths from Hep B and few other things....I believe that benefit outweig the risks
I'm so sorry about your RA! That totally stinks! I've been lucky so far to have an easily-controlled type, as does my daughter. My son's asthma, however, is not autoimmune at this point -- he has reactive airway-type/non-allergic asthma. His isn't triggered by pollen/foods/pets, but by cold air & occasionally a virus takes a deep dive into his lungs.
Interesting about your bout with mumps. I was completely vaxed and had the mumps anyway as well, around age 9. I had read somewhere that there's a correlation between people who are vaxed and don't show immunity after the MMRs and later development of autoimmune disease. I'll try and find it again.
We too will be doing a flu vax this year for the first time, but the rest I'm on the fence about. Every single one of my siblings and both parents have at least one autoimmune disease each, and unfortunately every one of them has had a flare after vax-ing. My sister, who has lupus, had an uncontrollable flare that lasted the better part of 6 months after a mandatory Hep B vax at her job (hospital). They excused her from the rest of the Hep B series as she doesn't work with blood products directly. High doses of prednisone weren't even cutting it. That's what I'm hesitant to have happen to myself or my older 2 children. We'll most likely go ahead with a few select vax's, but very, very slowly so as not to "poke the sleeping bear" in my terrible genes.
Jen
What happened is that I had shock reaction to flue vaccine at 7 and I did not get any vaccines after that. My mom did not even bother to test my titers because she did not want any boosters etc.
I am very lucky as far as RA. I have an abortive form. So, I am not in pain all the time (-:
Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories!
It's fascinating to see the changes out perceptions and beliefs undergo as we grow, have new experiences to deal with, constantly looking for information / evidence to base our choices on. I was particularly impressed with the lengths Jugs went to, contacting Paul Offit himself (who some anti-vaxxers seem to think of as the Anti-Christ himself).
Me, I'm kinda coming from the opposite direction: I studied medicine, so I had a pretty good insight into the things diseases can and will do to a human body if you let them. So I'm vaxxed against pretty much ANYTHING (I traveled a lot, so I even got exotic vaxxes like yellow fever and rabies) and the same goes for my family. Anecdotal evidence: None of us has ever had a reaction that went beyond a rash and a little fever and we're all healthy as horses.
On top of that, right now, I'm not working as a doctor, but as a teacher. Some of my students have crunchy tendencies, and so they WILL ask me if vaxxing is safe.
I only know of one kind of circumstance where vaxxing is seriously dangerous: If you have an immune deficiency like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_combined_immunodeficiency and you are immunized with a live vaccine.
Still, I'm on the lookout to see if I'm missing something (I'd be mortally embarrased if there was and I've been telling my students nonsense because I didn't do my research) and so I browse through the non-vax forums. So far though, I have found NO kind of risk to vaccination that would convince me that it presents more of a danger than not vaccinating.....
I'm keeping my eyes open though, just in case ^_~
For Turquesa, here's the most recent schedule for immunization here in Germany: It's in german, but you should be able to figure it out regardless. Top row is age in months, first column the diseases. I've alos posted a link to a good english / german translation site:
For Skyblufig , here's a link to a paper and the discussion of it which you might find interesting. It's about the connection between auto-immune diseases and vaccinating. Mind you, the study was done on mice, not humans, but it hints at things that might turn out to be relevant for humans too. Oh, and apparently, the OP didn't acutally read the study beyond the summary, so she missed a few important points, but I did and if you scroll down the first page, you'll find me commenting, analyzing the thing and its' significance best I can.
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1320786/concerned-about-vaccines-and-autoimmune-disease
I did not vax either of my sons until they were 7 and 4. I decided to start vaxing then, and got my oldest Tdap and MMR (and will do hep B and IPV but the doctor couldn't find his chart at the last appt. so all she wanted to do was a Tdap), and my middle son fully school approved (DTaP, MMR, IPV and hep B). I still delay vaxed with my daughter, starting with 1 DTaP at 9 mos. She is on the road to be fully vaxed by 2, with 2 shots per WBV. I guess I am still not a fully vaxing parent, but I have very few qualms about vaccinating my kids at this point.
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