When and how did you start to question?

[Jennyanydots]

Did you come from a non vaccinating family? Notice reactions in your child or someone else's? Was it something you read?

I am amazed when I read accounts from those of you with older kids that were never vaccinated. I was a very young mom when my now-teenagers were small, and though I did ask questions, I was easily cowed into compliance by doctors and nurses. I was not very confident, and embarrassed by my age and lack of education... I didn't really protest until we were to submit to the chicken pox vaccine, then when I was told that my kids had to have these shots or they couldn't go to school I didn't realize it was possible to be exempted.

Anyway, it was cp that made me start thinking critically about vaccines, and later, reports about guardasil (after DD1 had had two doses). i began to suspect that DD1's illnesses and other behavioral issues may be vaccine damage, and when i looked back at her shot record the timing supported my suspicions. But it wasn't until I found out we were expecting DS that I revisited the issue and really began sifting through the available information. I still have so much to learn, but I'm less inclined than ever to trust pro vaccine sources.

Just wondering how others began to ask these questions, too.

[Lazurii]

My dad was against vaccines.  My mom and him compromised by getting our childhood shots but not the boosters.  My dad was very vocal about his opinions on vaccines and that always stuck with me.  I was born in the mid-80's, to give you a time frame.

[emmy526]

With my first...he had adverse reactions with all his vaccines, and this was in '87, when it was only the oral polio, and DPT....his excema worsened with every subsequent vaccine, and he was sick constantly for a month or more after every dpt.  I started researching when he was a baby, and began reading the PDR, Physicians Desk Reference, and looking up stats for childhood illness, titres, efficacy of vaccines, etc....it was in the PDR, i found the efficacy rates not to be as good as drs touted. That was my first experience with a dr lying about vaccine efficacy.    Since then, anything and everything i could get my hands on concerning vaccines, has been a top concern as a parent....when more siblings came along, i decided to wait and educate myself some more, and at that time, was out in Boulder, Co, and had wonderful support for my choice to delay/not vaccinate.   The internet was not available back in those days with all the info we have now, so i had to rely on the library lady to order my periodicals/magazines, etc on vaccines for me to read, and research.   Do i now blame the library lady for giving me 'the wrong info'? of course not!! Now the SAME info is available on the internet, and it's funny how quickly people dismiss stats/articles, just because it's on the 'net, and not a hard copy in the their hands.   My husband is very supportive of our decision as well, and has seen them reap the benefits of having healthy bodies.  

[Marnica]

I used to be quite pro vaccine - not because Id done any research, but because I was a allopathic medicine person and vaccines was just something you did.

Anyway about 10 years ago myself and my whole family for a variety of reason began to question many things about allopathic medicine and started to turn to alternative medicine for a variety of things and we all got much better results. I still did not think much about vaccines because at that time I was unmarried and had no kids. Around the same time, I was dating a guy whose best friend's sister didn't vaccinate her kid. I thought she was a fruitcake for not vaccinating, but the seed was planted.

Fast forward a few years. a co-workers friend's 2 month old dies 14 hrs after her shots. It is called SIDS. The family felt it was vaccines. I start delving into the subject mostly because I think the parents are nutty for blaming vaccines, but then again I think there are so many aspects of allopathic medicine that are not what they seem so perhaps it's worth looking into. 

Down the rabbit hole I go and what I have learned has evolved over the years and concurrently I have become more involved with alternative medicine as well. When I got married and had kids, I already knew I most likely would decline most if not all vaccines, but I have always been glad I did most of my research before I had kids so i didn't feel that pressure to decide that many new vaccine skeptics feel when they are new parents. 

[kathymuggle]

Originally Posted by emmy526 
  Do i now blame the library lady for giving me 'the wrong info'? of course not!! Now the SAME info is available on the internet, and it's funny how quickly people dismiss stats/articles, just because it's on the 'net, and not a hard copy in the their hands. 

I work in a library.  We face this issue frequently.  Teachers want the kids to use  hard copy books or periodicals as references (sometimes the teachers are just trying to encourage book usage ) but sometimes it comes from internet snobbery.  

An article from the Lancet is an article from the Lancet…whether it is online or in print format.

[kathymuggle]

My oldest (almost 17) was vaccinated until he was about 18 months old.  A few things happened when he was around 18 months:

1.  I learned that DTaP existed and was safer, but they were not using it (were still using whole cell) because DTP was cheaper, ect.  I am not sure where I learned this from - old issues of Mothering, a magazine called Complete Mother, radio…..

2.  They switched from giving 1 shot of MMR to giving 2 shots of MMR.  Why - because the first shot did not "catch" up to 5% of the population.  So, wait….I am supposed to put my son through another vax, and the risk that entails, on the 5% chance he did not get immunity from it the first time round for a disease that has a really low prevalence?  

I started asking questions - questions about disease risk, vaccine risk, prevalence of disease - and the nurses and doctors could not help me.  They knew no stats.  All I got (repeatedly) was "the risks from vaccination are lower than the risks of the disease" - well, not good enough.  Numbers, folks!  One suggested I call the Canadian Pediatric Society, who also had no numbers for me.

Fast forward a few years, to the dawn of the internet.  I was able to get much of the information I initially lacked online, but my search just opened up new issues.  Because of all the conflicts of interest inherent in vaccine studies and information overload I have still not come to very firm conclusions about what is what.  That is not enough for me to vaccinate.  I also favour a non-interventionist model of health care when possible, this included vaccines.  

Edited by kathymuggle - 12/31/12 at 3:23pm

[sassyfirechick]

Raised in a "follow the doctor" household and my plan was to attend vet school.  I took Anat & Phys in high school to get me started and numerous animals science courses in college, all of which entailed both human and animal biology (let's face it, regardless of species a cervix is a cervix!). Junior year I switched to a behavior science track to avoid the calculus and physics requirements for pre-vet and got hooked on dog training.  My graduation present from the hubs (we'd been dating a yr at the time) was a puppy, well, one for me and one for my parents, both of which I cared for.  Right off the bat they came home overvaccinated - 8wks old and already had 2 combos for a 3 series.  My vet started the process from square one, I didn't know better since I'd worked at a vet and it was drilled into me that vaxxing was a necessity.  One week from the 'first' vax (so 3rd in a 4-5wk span) - both dogs had kennel cough/bronchitis.  Two months later I was at the emergency vet when one of them collapsed - pneumonia.  Some serious medications, antibiotics, and about $10k in vet bills later, I had a new take on medicine.  Stopped all vaxes in lieu of titers, a serious gut cleanse for both, and a new raw diet.  They are almost 8 now and while they are 'healthy' I know they bear long term effects and I only hope I caught it all in time to give them the best shot at a long happy life.  I learned the hard way...the expensive way!

So when it came to having kids, I had a jump start on what I thought I wanted to do.  I knew what I'd learned from the dogs and I didn't want to repeat that.  I thought I would go slow and keep things to a minimum.  I lost my nerve and let pressure get the best of me in the beginning.  But it took my daughter having a vaccine reaction for me to truely understand and make the decision to follow my gut and not be pressured. 

[japonica]

I came from a family where the doctor was never questioned, antibiotics were consumed like candy, and vaccines were always something you agreed to.

I lost my first DD shortly before birth for unknown reasons. From her autopsy and the pathology reports, there were a number of small factors, too insignificant to mean anything, but one thing that stuck with me was how based on her IUGR rates, she started to go downhill after my last prenatal winrho shot. Then the pathology report on my placenta showed some sort of massive inflammation had taken place that gradually shut down all blood flow. Yet, earlier throughout the pg everything had been fine and no detectable infections were present in my bloodwork. I asked the OBs if it were possible that my body had reacted to some component in the winrho shot. The placental inflammation and reaction had to come from somewhere, right? They all denied it, but there was the supposedly meaningless coincidence. I went from healthy low risk pg to shot to stillbirth. For no reason apparently. Even if the winrho was completely blameless, I wish I'd have been told that I could have refused prenatal shots and just had it administered postnatally. That would have been my choice, if I'd been given that option. It failed me anyway and we subsequently discovered that I was sensitised just prior to birth of DD. So, the scary worst case scenario ("Ooh, your risk of sensitisation goes up if you wait,") happened anyway when the shot failed. I ended up with my daughter dead and the kicker was that it failed to prevent my sensitisation. Nice. BTW I did have two sensitised pregnancies, and no further winrho shots obviously, and everything went well. 

When my DD2 was born, I told myself I'd delay until I was 100% comfortable with what I was doing. The first round of shots would have included the usual DTaP-IPV-Hib. It was winter in Canada, -30C, and the ground was frozen. For some reason, the tetanus aspect stuck with me. I asked the nurse, "Why does she need a tetanus shot right now? The ground's frozen rock hard and she can't even walk yet, so not much chance of stepping on the proverbial nail?" She told me that was just the way it was done. I said I didn't think much of giving tetanus shots to little babies in the middle of winter and said I'd get back to her on the series. That was eight years ago.

Edited by japonica - 12/31/12 at 4:42pm

[lanamommyphd07]

It started with my birth plan. I was pregnant with DD, thinking I would write a dissertation while she was gestating. Right. What did I end up doing? Vax research. Circ research. file cabinets full. When I was researching birth plans, I think I stumbled on MDC, and then it was like I had permission to have questions. Here were those other mommas hanging out in fringe-land who had some balls. I wanted a set too.

I couldn't believe that brand new babies were being shot up. I couldn't believe they were smeared with eyegoo. I couldn't believe that there were so many vaccines, but I couldn't find out a rank of importance. Like, if one is absolutely questionable, what about the rest? I couldn't find any statistically sound information (my doc minor is in stats...so I'm weird like that), but I could find peripheral data, such as the effects of aluminum on the brain, etc. I couldn't believe there wasn't more interdisciplinary stuff.

Then, just as I was almost there...I had a 5 year old patient (I was a child therapist in those days), who came in with a strange range of symptoms, had been through a million therapists, had a whole team of providers. Mom mentioned that the kiddo seemed to change after his "normal febrile seizures" at 2 y.o. Then he had more febrile seizures and it got worse. I asked mom to bring in her vax records just to see if there was a pattern, and whaaaalah. Two years before, I wouldn't have known to even ask. I called the kid's ped and wondered out loud if there had been a report to VAERS, and the ped was the most condescending, accusatory, telling me "what kind of degree do you have and stop with the quackery" kind of dude that I wanted to vomit.

And that is when, my friends, I was past the fringe-line. I have no idea what happened with the kiddo. Mom was really passive and had some dv to deal with, and kiddo spent a lot of time in residential care. Last I knew, he was on about 7 meds. I always felt like I failed that family, or that they had probably experienced so much mis-guiding before meeting me that the correlation between his behavior and the vax just didn't seem important to them. If I met the family for the first time today, I would set an emergency appointment with a ND and drive them to the provider myself, if needed. That poor kid just did not need to be on that path.

[Jennyanydots]

Originally Posted by Lazurii 

My dad was against vaccines.  My mom and him compromised by getting our childhood shots but not the boosters.  My dad was very vocal about his opinions on vaccines and that always stuck with me.  I was born in the mid-80's, to give you a time frame.

Sounds like you were lucky to have him as a role model!

Originally Posted by emmy526 

With my first...he had adverse reactions with all his vaccines, and this was in '87, when it was only the oral polio, and DPT....his excema worsened with every subsequent vaccine, and he was sick constantly for a month or more after every dpt.  I started researching when he was a baby, and began reading the PDR, Physicians Desk Reference, and looking up stats for childhood illness, titres, efficacy of vaccines, etc....it was in the PDR, i found the efficacy rates not to be as good as drs touted. That was my first experience with a dr lying about vaccine efficacy.    Since then, anything and everything i could get my hands on concerning vaccines, has been a top concern as a parent....when more siblings came along, i decided to wait and educate myself some more, and at that time, was out in Boulder, Co, and had wonderful support for my choice to delay/not vaccinate.   The internet was not available back in those days with all the info we have now, so i had to rely on the library lady to order my periodicals/magazines, etc on vaccines for me to read, and research.   Do i now blame the library lady for giving me 'the wrong info'? of course not!! Now the SAME info is available on the internet, and it's funny how quickly people dismiss stats/articles, just because it's on the 'net, and not a hard copy in the their hands.   My husband is very supportive of our decision as well, and has seen them reap the benefits of having healthy bodies.  

It IS funny how dismissive people can be of research done online. Really, it's all in how you use it, IMO. Good for you, checking your facts when what the doctors said didn't line up. I'm just very impressed with the fact that people were questioning these things back then, even before the schedule became so overloaded that it raised alarm bells for many of us.

Originally Posted by Marnica 

Fast forward a few years. a co-workers friend's 2 month old dies 14 hrs after her shots. It is called SIDS. The family felt it was vaccines. I start delving into the subject mostly because I think the parents are nutty for blaming vaccines, but then again I think there are so many aspects of allopathic medicine that are not what they seem so perhaps it's worth looking into. 

Down the rabbit hole I go and what I have learned has evolved over the years and concurrently I have become more involved with alternative medicine as well. When I got married and had kids, I already knew I most likely would decline most if not all vaccines, but I have always been glad I did most of my research before I had kids so i didn't feel that pressure to decide that many new vaccine skeptics feel when they are new parents. 

How sad for the family of that little girl
I think I'd gotten to that point before DS was born, and I'm glad I didn't feel that pressure, then. It's funny- in my family both of my parents are very cautious and skeptical of allopathic medicine (mom was raised Christian Science and dad's a health nut) but vaccines were never questioned. It took me raising the issue and talking with them about it for them to start asking some of the same questions.

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

I started asking questions - questions about disease risk, vaccine risk, prevalence of disease - and the nurses and doctors could not help me.  They knew no stats.  All I got (repeatedly) was "the risks from vaccination are lower than the risks of the disease" - well, not good enough.  Numbers, folks!  One suggested I call the Canadian Pediatric Society, who also had no numbers for me.

This really bothers me, too. When I start looking for answers to specific questions I hit a brick wall and the responses become appeals to emotion or fear-based arguments. It does little to inspire confidence.

[Jennyanydots]

Originally Posted by sassyfirechick 

Raised in a "follow the doctor" household and my plan was to attend vet school.  I took Anat & Phys in high school to get me started and numerous animals science courses in college, all of which entailed both human and animal biology (let's face it, regardless of species a cervix is a cervix!). Junior year I switched to a behavior science track to avoid the calculus and physics requirements for pre-vet and got hooked on dog training.  My graduation present from the hubs (we'd been dating a yr at the time) was a puppy, well, one for me and one for my parents, both of which I cared for.  Right off the bat they came home overvaccinated - 8wks old and already had 2 combos for a 3 series.  My vet started the process from square one, I didn't know better since I'd worked at a vet and it was drilled into me that vaxxing was a necessity.  One week from the 'first' vax (so 3rd in a 4-5wk span) - both dogs had kennel cough/bronchitis.  Two months later I was at the emergency vet when one of them collapsed - pneumonia.  Some serious medications, antibiotics, and about $10k in vet bills later, I had a new take on medicine.  Stopped all vaxes in lieu of titers, a serious gut cleanse for both, and a new raw diet.  They are almost 8 now and while they are 'healthy' I know they bear long term effects and I only hope I caught it all in time to give them the best shot at a long happy life.  I learned the hard way...the expensive way!

So when it came to having kids, I had a jump start on what I thought I wanted to do.  I knew what I'd learned from the dogs and I didn't want to repeat that.  I thought I would go slow and keep things to a minimum.  I lost my nerve and let pressure get the best of me in the beginning.  But it took my daughter having a vaccine reaction for me to truely understand and make the decision to follow my gut and not be pressured. 

We don't have any pets right now, and it only recently has occurred to me to wonder what the vaccine issue might mean for animals. Not just the pets we domesticate, but livestock from which we get food, milk, groundwater contamination, etc. We live in such a heavily medicated society, it seems impossible to escape all the chemicals we're pumping out there.

Originally Posted by japonica 

I came from a family where the doctor was never questioned, antibiotics were consumed like candy, and vaccines were always something you agreed to.

I lost my first DD shortly before birth for unknown reasons. From her autopsy and the pathology reports, there were a number of small factors, too insignificant to mean anything, but one thing that stuck with me was how based on her IUGR rates, she started to go downhill after my last prenatal winrho shot. Then the pathology report on my placenta showed some sort of massive inflammation had taken place that gradually shut down all blood flow. Yet, earlier throughout the pg everything had been fine and no detectable infections were present in my bloodwork. I asked the OBs if it were possible that my body had reacted to some component in the winrho shot. The placental inflammation and reaction had to come from somewhere, right? They all denied it, but there was the supposedly meaningless coincidence. I went from healthy low risk pg to shot to stillbirth. For no reason apparently. Even if the winrho was completely blameless, I wish I'd have been told that I could have refused prenatal shots and just had it administered postnatally. That would have been my choice, if I'd been given that option. It failed me anyway and we subsequently discovered that I was sensitised just prior to birth of DD. So, the scary worst case scenario ("Ooh, your risk of sensitisation goes up if you wait,") happened anyway when the shot failed. I ended up with my daughter dead and the kicker was that it failed to prevent my sensitisation. Nice. BTW I did have two sensitised pregnancies, and no further winrho shots obviously, and everything went well. 

When my DD2 was born, I told myself I'd delay until I was 100% comfortable with what I was doing. The first round of shots would have included the usual DTaP-IPV-Hib. It was winter in Canada, -30C, and the ground was frozen. For some reason, the tetanus aspect stuck with me. I asked the nurse, "Why does she need a tetanus shot right now? The ground's frozen rock hard and she can't even walk yet, so not much chance of stepping on the proverbial nail?" She told me that was just the way it was done. I said I didn't think much of giving tetanus shots to little babies in the middle of winter and said I'd get back to her on the series. That was eight years ago.

I'm so sorry for your loss, Japonica
I agree that the way shots are bundled and the timing of certain recommended shots just makes no sense on an individual level. Tetanus (and hep b) for brand new infants? It's definitely enough to raise questions.

Originally Posted by lanamommyphd07 

It started with my birth plan. I was pregnant with DD, thinking I would write a dissertation while she was gestating. Right. What did I end up doing? Vax research. Circ research. file cabinets full. When I was researching birth plans, I think I stumbled on MDC, and then it was like I had permission to have questions. Here were those other mommas hanging out in fringe-land who had some balls. I wanted a set too.

I couldn't believe that brand new babies were being shot up. I couldn't believe they were smeared with eyegoo. I couldn't believe that there were so many vaccines, but I couldn't find out a rank of importance. Like, if one is absolutely questionable, what about the rest? I couldn't find any statistically sound information (my doc minor is in stats...so I'm weird like that), but I could find peripheral data, such as the effects of aluminum on the brain, etc. I couldn't believe there wasn't more interdisciplinary stuff.

Then, just as I was almost there...I had a 5 year old patient (I was a child therapist in those days), who came in with a strange range of symptoms, had been through a million therapists, had a whole team of providers. Mom mentioned that the kiddo seemed to change after his "normal febrile seizures" at 2 y.o. Then he had more febrile seizures and it got worse. I asked mom to bring in her vax records just to see if there was a pattern, and whaaaalah. Two years before, I wouldn't have known to even ask. I called the kid's ped and wondered out loud if there had been a report to VAERS, and the ped was the most condescending, accusatory, telling me "what kind of degree do you have and stop with the quackery" kind of dude that I wanted to vomit.

And that is when, my friends, I was past the fringe-line. I have no idea what happened with the kiddo. Mom was really passive and had some dv to deal with, and kiddo spent a lot of time in residential care. Last I knew, he was on about 7 meds. I always felt like I failed that family, or that they had probably experienced so much mis-guiding before meeting me that the correlation between his behavior and the vax just didn't seem important to them. If I met the family for the first time today, I would set an emergency appointment with a ND and drive them to the provider myself, if needed. That poor kid just did not need to be on that path.

Sounds like you procrastinate the same way I do. It's too bad about that poor kid. And unfortunately that doctor's attitude doesn't seem uncommon.

[Chicharronita]

The seeds were initially planted when I saw my first miserable crying baby who had just received vaccines, long before I met my current dh and even thought about having a family. As a child I'd had all the conventional doctor visits and vaccines. I got CP and the mumps which they didn't help with at all, and neither did my parents even though they tried to the best way they knew how.

When I got pregnant I did a lot of research online and found my local AP group, which is full of non-vaxers. I read some books that questioned the medical model. One of my favorites continues to be Dr. Mendelsohn's How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of your Doctor. 

Speaking of going down the rabbit hole, when I cured myself of a long-standing chronic UTI problem with homeopathy and herbs and realized I was put on meds for no good reason than the doctors didn't know any other way of treating it, there was no going back. I knew from that point on I was solely responsible for my health. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by lanamommyphd07 

 Here were those other mommas hanging out in fringe-land who had some balls. I wanted a set too.

 

[emmagrace]

I'm still not sure exactly where I am on vaccination, but I know where I'm NOT, and that's shooting up an infant with "dead" diseases that she has virtually zero chance of contracting.  I guess I got "started" by just common sense:  that my daughter didn't need to be protected against STDs and Hep B at birth if I didn't have them.  My decisions about the rest of them (except Gardisil, which she's definitely not getting) will come with time and research, but not at two months.  

My daughter was born SGA (4lbs) at 37 weeks.  She was born at home, but we took her to the hospital several hours later because she was having trouble maintaining her temperature.  When she was first admitted to the NICU, the doctor said she needed a Hep B shot.  When I refused, she *then* asked for the proof I didn't have Hep B.  I gave her the name of the clinic and midwife from whom I had gotten my shadow care (I didn't have the number on me) and she said, "Well, I might have trouble getting the information since you don't have the phone number, in which case, she'll need the shot."  I immediately Googled the clinic on my iPad and got her the number five seconds later.  Apparently, she'd rather go against our wishes and shoot up my daughter unnecessarily than take a moment to do that herself?  

Our daughter's temp issues were resolved that night (and she really had no other issues) but they kept coming up with excuses to keep us for FIVE days (in which time my husband and I slept in uncomfortable chairs and spent way too much on hospital food, and our tiny babe was forced to eat on a schedule and be poked, prodded, and otherwise near-constantly investigated).  

I feel like the hospital treated us like aliens because our daughter was an unassisted homebirth (our midwife didn't arrive in time because my labor jumped precipitously, and we didn't give her name because our state doesn't recognize CPMs).  If we had delivered her in the hospital, she probably would have been released in 1-2 days at most.  

So... I digress, but the point is that I've always questioned things, and our post-partum hospital experience has done nothing but made me question more.  I'll do what I think is best for my daughter after I have all the information I need.  

[Renae08]

To simply answer your question, I was fully vaccinated and got pertussis. I was very young and the doctors were shocked, along with my parents. We had done everything we were suppose to, right? I didn't find out I had whooping cough until I had already spread it around for at least 2 weeks. This made me realize that the world is not as it seemed and I had been under a false sense of security. It still took over a decade after this incident for me to actually turn down a booster shot and new vaccines (Gardisil). Now we do not vaccinate at all. I think a pp mentioned it already, but the Internet has been very helpful yet there is also a lot of propaganda out there that requires some major sifting through. It is much easier now though to find information than it was back when I first started questioning.

[sonjagrabel]

I started by first questioning allopathic medicine in general.  In high school and college (mid-to-late '90's) I was a pharmacy tech and saw things that made me start to question pharmaceuticals.  [Examples: a whole aisle of cough and cold medicines when there were, at that time, only about 4 active ingredients. Sneaky marketing - Excedrin is one example.  It is acetaminophen (Tylenol,) aspirin, and caffeine.  It cost way more than those same ingredients bought separately AND they actually charged even more for "Aspirin Free Excedrin" which was just acetaminophen and caffeine. You had to pay more for fewer ingredients! And, visits by drug reps.  They bought us lunch, brought us tons of goodies, and were obviously well paid (nice cars, expensive suits, etc.) and we didn't have any control over which prescriptions we sold - we just filled the prescriptions that were brought to us.  So it didn't make sense they were spending so much to promote drugs at our tiny drugstore. At the same time, I saw people struggling to afford the ridiculously expensive medicines and couldn't help but think they'd be a lot cheaper without all the needless marketing.

I was always sickly with allergies, asthma, stomach problems, joint pain, sinus problems, etc. Every year, I used up my total allowance of sick days. I was on many prescriptions and had several doctors.  I'd been to see 4 different ENT's and got completely different answers.  After I'd had special hearing tests, full GI barium whatever it was x-ray, sinus MRI, scope up my nose, allergy shots, the list goes on. . . . none of which helped to solve any of my problems. . . I finally gave it all up, stopped taking medicine, and decided to live with whatever problems I had. I actually felt better once I stopped doing everything they told me to do, but still wasn't "well."  I moved to Oregon, which is very alternative medicine friendly.  A friend went to a ND (which I'd never even heard of at that point.)  I thought she was a bit wacky, but, as they say, "the seed was planted."  I ended up seeing the same ND and with a few diet changes (no dairy, no gluten) felt WELL for the first time in my life.  Literally all of my health problems disappeared.  Still can't fathom why NONE of the ENT's even suggested going off of dairy to get rid of my sinus problems. . . . Ahh, so simple.  I had always said that I thought all of my health problems were related, but they just kept sending me to different specialists and no one would even consider that.

So, by they time I got pregnant, I was pretty much done with allopathic medicine. Went through a birth center and picked an ND for my baby's doc.  When I was about halfway through the pregnancy, I started to tackle the vaccine question.  I figured I'd want to delay/selectively vax, but really had no info.  The lady who hosted a pregnancy support group I went to was selling the Dr. Sear's vaccine handbook as a fundraiser or something.  He had just been in town doing a lecture I think.  Anyway, I bought the book and so it began.  After reading that, and many other books, I met with my baby's ND, who is well-versed on vaccines (she is actually one of the MDC experts that you can get advice from,) we decided to do no vaccines until she is at least a year.  We might never do them, but I'm taking it one step at a time.  We'll revisit when she is one.

[Taximom5]

Japonica, I am so sorry about your first baby.  

I lost my first, too, but it was during the first trimester.  

I looked up winrho, and found this on drugs.com:  (the Rh _o(D) immune globulin available in the U.S. and Canada may contain thimerosal ^{{01} {02} {03} {04} {05} {06} {07}})

I remember reading that thimerosal-free RhoGam was being offered in the last 6 or 7 years; but I don't know if all Rh o (D) immune globulin is thimerosal-free or not.

I also found this:  http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/rhogam.htm, which claims that in Europe, Rhogam is ONLY administered after pregnancy, and that it jeopardizes the first pregnancy if given during pregnancy instead of immediately after.  But I don't know enough about it to know whether or not that is true.

I also found a previous thread here http://www.mothering.com/community/t/634588/other-concerns-about-thimerosal-free-rhogam-at-28-weeks. It's 11 pages long, and I didn't have time to read past the first page, so I don't know if you already posted on it back then or not. 

You probably researched all this already anyway, but I thought I'd post the links anyway, in case anyone reading along is interested.

[japonica]

Thanks, Taxi. I still get PMs from many moms asking not only about the winrho/rhogam aspect but also what to expect with sensitised pregnancies (since that's the big concern, usually). My two sensitised pregnancies were pretty uneventful aside from all the extra monitoring by the peris.

ETA: The variety I received was supposedly thimerosal free. I don't personally think the thimerosal was the issue. The whole pooled blood product from thousands of donors, purified and screened for all known infectious agents doesn't sit right with me. All known infectious agents. What about unscreened for ones? Could there theoretically have been an unlooked for virus in there that contributed to the inflammation that resulted at that time? Who knows? Again, with hindsight, I would have waited and gone with the postnatal shot. But that's all hindsight is good for right, looking at bad decisions we made and realising we'd do things differently if we had the chance.

Edited by japonica - 1/3/13 at 3:40pm