Mothering Mamas Who Thoughtfully Vaccinate - Page 8

[prosciencemum]

Should add that in the UK we usually have to pay out of pocket for travel vaccinations, so if Hep A is only recommended for those travelling to certain countries, I'm pretty sure that means you have to pay out of pocket to get it here too.  

[prosciencemum]

Came across a couple of Facebook groups and a new blog recently that fit with the theme of this thread, so I thought it might be helpful to share. 

There's Informed Parents of Vaccinated Children. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Informed-Parents-of-Vaccinated-Children/236107336440146

and blog (not much here yet): http://informedparentsofvaccinatedchildren.wordpress.com/

And there's also Informed Citizens against Vaccine Misinformation (on Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/InformedCitizensAgainstVaccinationMisinformation

This last on is a collection of information about why some of the common misconceptions are not scientifically accurate. 

Hope it helps some Mothering Mamas who have chosen or are making the choice to thoughtfully vaccinate. 

[prosciencemum]

Another possibly useful resource for this group of "thoughful vaccinators" - tips for answering the common comment from anti-vax mothers that "if you just did the research you'd choose not to vaccinate": http://skeweddistribution.com/2012/10/01/dear-anti-vaxxer-yes-i-do-the-research/

[Rrrrrachel]

Thanks for posting all these resources!

[HappyHappyMommy]

Hi Everyone,

As a reminder, this is a thread for the support and sharing of ideas and experiences among those who chose to vaccinate. It is not a thread for debate of whether to vaccinate. If you post is debating whether or not to vaccinate, questioning vaccination, or advocating against vaccination, please immediately edit your posts in this thread. You are welcome to post your thoughts regarding questioning vaccination or advocating against vaccination in another thread.

Also, please remember MDC's User Agreement and specifically that personal attacks are not allowed. If you post contains a personal attack, please edit it immediately.

Thank you.

[prosciencemum]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

Thanks for posting all these resources!

You're welcome. Lovely to see you're still around. I was missing all the great resources you share here. :) 

[Rrrrrachel]

Originally Posted by prosciencemum 

You're welcome. Lovely to see you're still around. I was missing all the great resources you share here.  

I've really busy and in need of a break!

[erigeron]

Just checking in... doing all these multi-shot series, I am frustrated by what seems to me to be a lack of information about the necessity of boosters. My daughter had the primary series of DTaP, Hib, Prevnar, and Polio. Now at 15 months has come time for the boosters. For instance, for Prevnar there's data about immune response after shot #3 (at 6 months) and then about after shot #4 (at 12 or 15 months). I 'd love to see data about titers in kids who did or did not receive the booster shot, at the time of the booster shot. (i.e. is the booster shot necessary?) Oh, and what titer is protective? That would be nice to know too. I mean, absent this, I am sure the decision to boost was based on SOMETHING, but I would like to know what it's based on, for my own information. 

I don't like to do too many shots at once, and only having done a couple of shots this visit and having delayed the hepatitis shots, she is unexpectedly behind. (We had her DTaP and Prevnar boosters at this appointment. Two MAs came at her at once, so a stick and by the time she started to cry it was all done. She was upset for maybe 15 seconds and has been dandy ever since.) Still remaining: MMR (which I'm delaying until 18 months to improve measles immunogenicity, just read a study about mumps reducing the risk of ovarian cancer but have to figure out how likely she is to ever even catch mumps and how much of a risk reduction we are talking about before I start thinking about that as a reason not to vaccinate), Hib booster, and the Hep A and B series. Although it does look like she's caught up for a couple of years after we finish these. 

[MRubio]

I am following up after giving our son the vaccines we decided upon.  We nixed the Pc due to the fact that over 80% of infants have bad reactions.  He has received Dtap, HIB and Rota.  He hasn't had any reaction at the site with any injections, he was very tired the first dose (Dtap and Rota) and got fussy in the evening.  He had no issues at all with the HIB.  Overall, I have been pleased with our choice and our doctor has been great.  She did talk with me about MMR, which I am totally against, and I hope she doesn't push it with me.  She says if he gets the measles after puberty it can make him sterile and if we take him to Spain (my husband's whole family is there) we should definitely give it to him.  Again, I am very against it.  My husband and I have both agreed that he won't get anymore and if we have another child I won't want to vax at all. We are using Standard Process nutrition to help his system eliminate what his body doesn't need and clean out his liver. Great products.

[prosciencemum]

Mrubio - I'm glad you're son didn't have any reactions this time. I'm curious why after this decision you are still so against other vaccines and won't get any for your next child?

In other news - I found another potentially interesting blog for this group of Mothering Mamas - one written by Nurses who advocate vaccination. It seems quite new (just a handful of posts) but the latest article is on why getting the flu shot while pregnant is safe and a good idea, written by a pregnant nurse, seems like it could be of particular interest: http://nurseswhovaccinate.blogspot.co.uk/ 

It's actually about the H1N1 shot. I did get H1N1 vaccine while pregnant in 2009 (after some debate), and I also gave it to my daughter (3 at the time). It is the shot we both had the biggest reaction too - both with sore arms (from the adjuvant I was told) and a slight fever (demonstrating that our immune system was developing the correct response). Since H1N1 never really materialised I have sometimes wondered if that was the right choice - but then I remember at the time no-one had any idea how bad it could get, and pregnant women were demonstrably more likely to have serious complications. I have since heard suggestions that it was the widespread vaccination programme that prevented it turning into the massive epidemic the media feared. So I am confident I made the right choice at the time to protect my family and contribute to preventing a massive flu epidemic. 

[prosciencemum]

Found another interesting article on the theme of making informed decisions to vaccinate and being confident in those decisions in the face of lots of scare stories about vaccine reactions online. This one from a mother who is also a researcher in the field of epidemiology: 

http://momswhovax.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/moms-who-vax-why-am-i-so-certain.html

[mama24-7]

Originally Posted by prosciencemum 

Found another interesting article on the theme of making informed decisions to vaccinate and being confident in those decisions in the face of lots of scare stories about vaccine reactions online. This one from a mother who is also a researcher in the field of epidemiology: 

http://momswhovax.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/moms-who-vax-why-am-i-so-certain.html

I'm always interested to read what others are thinking & feeling which is why I clicked on the blog.  The second line in the page that opens is, "If I knew any personally, and was on good enough terms to have a frank discussion, I would be so tempted to put them under a microscope and try to understand where the wires had gotten crossed."  Inflammatory much?

Sus

[prosciencemum]

Originally Posted by mama24-7 

I'm always interested to read what others are thinking & feeling which is why I clicked on the blog.  The second line in the page that opens is, "If I knew any personally, and was on good enough terms to have a frank discussion, I would be so tempted to put them under a microscope and try to understand where the wires had gotten crossed."  Inflammatory much?

Sus

Yeah perhaps I should have included a health warning to skip the first paragraph. I read a lot of frustration and lack of understanding in that paragraph. I think we find that on both sides of the debate. I personally try hard (and clearly fail given the responses some of my posts get which continue to astonish me) to debate respectfully and with the best science/evidence I can find.  

 A bad start doesn't mean the rest of what she wrote should be immediately dismissed. :)  

[mama24-7]

Originally Posted by prosciencemum 

Yeah perhaps I should have included a health warning to skip the first paragraph. I read a lot of frustration and lack of understanding in that paragraph. I think we find that on both sides of the debate. I personally try hard (and clearly fail given the responses some of my posts get which continue to astonish me) to debate respectfully and with the best science/evidence I can find.  

 A bad start doesn't mean the rest of what she wrote should be immediately dismissed. :)  

I can appreciate someone who is frustrated.  How can someone who is frustrated do anything but continue to be when they expressly say they don't want to hear from those they claim to be frustrated with?  

I am interested in having conversations w/ those who are so vehement regarding any issue.  How is it a conversation when only one side can have their say?  

And, how can she/they be sure that every vaccine available is right for every child/person?  How can anyone be sure that every person should get the same treatment?

I won't be reading that blog.  They do not accept comments & expressly say they would like to hear from mothers who vax.  Not something I'm willing to spend my time on.

Best wishes,

Sus

[MichelleZB]

We want to be careful to avoid using too much tone argument here. I would listen to this woman's opinion if only she had a better tone is a pretty dangerous ground to walk on. For more on tone arguments, this is a good primer: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument.

Sometimes people have something to say even if they say it in a way that you find unpleasant. Let's all keep that in mind.

On the other hand, Mama24-7, you absolutely don't have to hang around on a blog you don't like. I think the link was posted here for mamas who might be interested.

[crayfishgirl]

Originally Posted by MichelleZB 

We want to be careful to avoid using too much tone argument here. I would listen to this woman's opinion if only she had a better tone is a pretty dangerous ground to walk on. For more on tone arguments, this is a good primer: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument.

Sometimes people have something to say even if they say it in a way that you find unpleasant. Let's all keep that in mind.

On the other hand, Mama24-7, you absolutely don't have to hang around on a blog you don't like. I think the link was posted here for mamas who might be interested.

Exactly.

Thanks PSMum for sharing this, and the other recent links.

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by MichelleZB 

We want to be careful to avoid using too much tone argument here. I would listen to this woman's opinion if only she had a better tone is a pretty dangerous ground to walk on. For more on tone arguments, this is a good primer: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument.

I don't think it was just tone.  The blog site in question does not accept comments.  It seems more echo-chamberish than the non-vax forum (not that I particularly think the non-vax forum is always an echo chamber - but it is certainly a criticism that is launched at it regularly)

[JollyGG]

Joining in here. I do vax on schedule. Of course I only kinda fit the Mothering prototype. I take what works for us and leave the rest. One part I leave is the anti-vax argument. I am a medical researcher so the science of vaccines isn't anything I have a real problem with.

We only get flu shots some years. We balance what vaccines are in the shot that year, what we've had in the past, what our exposures are, etc. and then make a decision. We'll look at the 12 year old vaccines once they get a touch closer.

In related news I just recently got pertussis. I'm 35 years old. On the one hand the fact that my childhood vaccine obviously didn't work does make me question. Of course I haven't had a booster since childhood. I got my last tetanus shot in Feb. of 2005. It turns out they started changing to the Tdap which contains the pertussis booster in October of 2005, so I didn't get it. From my reading it doesn't appear that even had I actually had pertussis as a child that I would necessarily be immune at 35. It looks like immunity lasts about 20 years. My husband had the Tdap this spring and my kids were both current on their vaccinations so neither of them got ill.

Mine are all past the childhood vaccines and some of my questions will never again be relevant to them, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Did you find that getting two shots at once by two different nurses seemed to help? That is how my doctors office always did it. They believed that the kid only got to experience one moment of pain, just in both arms/legs at once. Then just this past year one of my friends had to get two shots and they did the two at once thing. He found it rather startling and said he would have preferred to get them one at time. Another friends doctors office always did them one at a time and thought it was bit strange that my doctors office always did two at a time. 

I also found it interesting how many people nursed through shots. My oldest is nine and the study that came out showing that nursing during shots helped with pain perception came out. My nurses knew I'd be game and asked to try it. It took us so much maneuvering to get both the nurses where they could do shots and me nursing comfortably (remember my doctors office liked to do two at once). The minute they placed those shots he unlatched, looked at me so betrayed, and screamed louder than he had for any other shots before or since. They looked at us and decided that that hadn't work as well as they hoped. I haven't tried since. It just seemed like the betrayal of being happy and comfortable then getting shots was harder on him then the whole hold him down quickly, give the shots, then nurse routine. So did you nurse during the actual shots, or just after?

Edited by JollyGG - 10/14/12 at 5:58pm

[~Adorkable~]

i have nursed thru al my twins shots, and our rule is two a visit and yeah i let them do two at a time.  i did them one after another once and the second one clearly caused a way bigger response, so we went back to two at a time and non after that in the visit.

when nursing i sit them on my lap straddling one or two legs depending on their age and size and latch them on nice and good, the usually unlatched when they got the shot, but went back fairly quick and because they were already nursing my milk was flowing well and then instantly got a big mouthful of yummy.  i do think it helps a lot , because once ,my girl hadn't really gotten a good let down yet and the nurse didnt understand what i was asking her to wait for. so she broke latch and was fussy and not focused enough to latch on long enough to get my letdown and instead just got worked up by frustration on top of it all.   that was the only time my kids cried for more than a few seconds. all other times the boob fixed everything.

[rightkindofme]

I was very delayed with my older daughter until the first time I wanted to take her out of the country. Then my tune changed. We have not vaccinated for everything yet because we have so far traveled to large first world nations with fully developed medical centers. Like, we don't get flu shots and they haven't had chicken pox yet. But my second daughter had MMR early because we were going to the UK during a time when they had a lot of cases. Mostly this is because we do one shot a visit. We will all be vaccinating with every vaccination known to mankind over the next few years because we plan to spend a year WWOOFing when our kids are a bit older. I suppose I am playing fast and loose with herd immunity. I feel a little guilty but not guilty enough to do more than one shot a visit.

If I do one shot a visit my daughter can handle it stoically and cheerfully and we have a good rest of the day. The one time we did a second shot she looked at me like I shot her puppy and we spent the day on the couch with her sobbing and feverish. We do one shot a visit! I feel really happy that we had a pediatrician who said, "The schedule was designed to catch the most vulnerable populations and frankly you don't fall into those groups." So I am not quite a "proud" vaccinator I guess. But I thoughtfully vaccinate. :)