Talk me through it- 2 month shots- DTaP-IPV-Hib and Pneu-C-13

[jeninejessica]

I know that I want to delay DD's upcoming 2 month immunizations. I just can't figure out how long, or if there are some that I will just choose not to do altogether. DH supports my decision loosely, but if it were just up to him he would give them all on schedule. 

I'm in Canada, and the HepB is not standard at birth, so these are her first scheduled shots. The five in one-- Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b (DTaP-IPV-Hib) and the Pneumococcal Conjugate 13 valent (Pneu-C-13), which my understanding is essentially the Prevnar shot. The scheduled dosing for both is 2, 4, 6, 12, and 18 months. My understanding at least with the Prevnar is that if we wait until 12 months, she only needs two doses, or wait until 2 years and get 1 dose. Those are both appealing to me, but obviously I don't want to be in a situation where we wait so long that we end up giving a shot that no longer has a true purpose (ie the rotavirus shot). 

Ideally I'd love to sit down and really figure out frequency rates for all of these diseases with and without vaccinations, presentation of those illnesses (ie is it really worth trying to prevent...) and outcomes, with and without vaccinations. But we haven't had time. Even this post alone I've been wanting to write for several weeks and always get busy doing something else. 

Does anybody have quick/easy information about which shots of these they chose to delay and what the reasoning would be-- or prevelence rates would be great. 

I feel like I would wait on polio, and tetanus at least until a year. Not sure uet about diphtheria, pertussis and Hib. The pneu-c-13 is a touchy one because DH did contract and get very sick with meningitis in high school. I've given him the decision on that one, but I'd still like to have facts to present to him obviously. 

[MommatoGray]

Honestly I don't know if I will be a lot of help, but I will share a bit of what we have done. And congrats on your new baby

At first I was not going to vaccinate and to be honest I was making the decison quite blindly. Then at a week old my son got RSV, of course this sent me into a panick. Two trips to the ER later he was fine, and now that I know more about RSV his was really mild. This experience sent me into a furry of activity, reading a lot on MDC and reading vaccine books. I still think it is difficult to find truly unbiased information.

So I suppose after many, many hours of research, and way too much time spent worrying...I suppose we are still on the fence! My little man just turned one year and we have not done ny shots, and I suppose I am not sure I will.

This is how I made my decison:

DTap-IPV-Hib: Off the bat, there was no way I personally would allow a five in one shot. It freaks me out, too many toxins at once. Plus in the natural world, there is no way a baby would come into contact with all 5 of these diseases at once. The pertussis component really scared me. I was open to tetnus and diptheria and considering I could not get those without the pertussis I decided to not go ahead with this one. Also, pertussis is mainly a risk for those under 6 months. If you think about it your child needs three shots to be fully protected and when will that happen? Well, at six months! So she won't even be protected until the highest risk is over.

Polio - I have read that they are considering removing this from the schedule, so I figured we could wait on this.

Hib - ok I will not lie, for me this one was really hard. I have shed many a tear of worry. This was my drs pet vaccine, and she freaked me out! Anything to do with meningitis scares me to death, and I suppose it is mainly because it can happen so fast and the only treatment is antibiotics. Yes I still worry about it. I guess what has kept me holding off is the fact that if I can hold off till 15 months then he only needs one. I do have serotype replacement concerns with this one. There is also a lot of info about BF inhibiting Hib infections.This one can be seperated and given on its own.

Prevnar - Yes equally freaked out about waiting on this one too. Again, meningitis scares the living crap out of me! Again, I have read that BF inhibits infection. I have also read that it is effective but we will need to keep adding new strains, this one has 13, the old one had 7. Again serptype replacement concerns with this one.

For me with both Hib and Prevnar I am concerned about messing with his immune system and all these bacteria are normally in our bodies. Some ladies on this board will tell you that vaxing for bacterial infections is ridiculous, to be honest I think its because of what I said above. Can anyone help us with this?

All you can do is your research, and I suppose (which I always hated hearing) follow your instinct. And as others will agree, if you are unsure, wait, you cannot unvax.

I read:

The Vaccine Book - Dr. Sears

Vaccine Safety Manuel - Neil Z.Miler

What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Childhood Vaccinations - Stephanie Cave

Vaccinations - Aviva Romm

And lots of links found on here, I also compared different provincial, country immunization schedules. Did you know that if you were here in Alberta you would also be getting Men-C at 2, 4 and 12 months!? Which I am assuming is the type of meningitis your husband contracted. Why should I get it here, and you are safe from it where you are?

And this may be good for you too, because you are in Canada. Katia Bailetti http://www.doctormom.me/ is a naturopath in Toronto and she specializes in vaccines. She has resources you can purchase that has Canadian info in it, which is sometimes hard to find.

Anyways hope that helps a little bit!! I also noticed in your sig that your husband is a medic. Is he a doctor? What are his thoughts? I saw that you said he supports you loosely, would love to know what he thinks about all this. Also saw you are a doula, that is awesome, I LOVED my doula, although she barely made it in time! I thought she was an awesome support, kudos to you for the support you are, I think every lady should have a doula!

And to other posters, please fix info if I have stated things that are wrong. All this is from memory and I hope I got it all right!

[MommatoGray]

And here are the "catch up" doses:

Hib:  - between 7-11 months you need two doses two months apart with a booster between 15-18 months

        - between 12-14 months you need one dose with a booster between 15-18 months

        - between 15-59 months you only need one dose

Prevnar: - 7 to 11 months 2 doses, at least 4 weeks apart 1 dose after 12 months of age

               - 12 to 23 months 2 doses 2 months apart

               - 24-59 one dose

DTap-IPV remains the same no matter when you start it. I believe if you wait till they are older then 7 you can seperate the two, and get the Tdap and IPV seperate. I believe that they need to wait till 18 to get tetnus and diptheria on its own.  

Here is where you can find a lot of info in Canada. Disease rates, etc....

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/cig-gci/index-eng.php

[Taximom5]

My question on the meningitis vaccines is this:  if vaccines can cause neurological damage (and so far there are1297 cases of vaccine-induced brain damage that went through US vaccine court and were admitted and compensated), isn't it possible that even the vaccines that are supposed to protect against meningitis can cause enough subtle neuro damage to set the stage for a later meningitis infection?

In fact, we know that the MMR used in the early 1990s CAUSED meningitis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8096942

[emmy526]

Originally Posted by Taximom5 

My question on the meningitis vaccines is this:  if vaccines can cause neurological damage (and so far there are1297 cases of vaccine-induced brain damage that went through US vaccine court and were admitted and compensated), isn't it possible that even the vaccines that are supposed to protect against meningitis can cause enough subtle neuro damage to set the stage for a later meningitis infection?

In fact, we know that the MMR used in the early 1990s CAUSED meningitis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8096942

i think it can.. and imo,  it would cause a case of meningitis the vax didn't cover..

[Taximom5]

If I had to do it again, I would hold off on all vaccines for at least two years, and then only do a couple.

When our chidren do school sports, they are required to do a "concussion" test, where their reaction time, eye-hand coordination, reading, and problem-solving skills are tested and kept on file.  Then, if they have a concussion, they do another test, and compare results, so that they can see exactly what deficits might be occurring.  Neurologists use the comparison to decide what brain areas might be affected by the concussion.

When you think about it, the same thing could be done with vaccines (though, personally, I'd still opt out of vaccines).