I know this is a touchy subject!
I want to start off by saying I do believe vaccinations are important, but I do feel that hollywood and celebrities have helped to freak parents out, but not left us with much solid info nor any clue as to what to do.
So the questions remains who is right and what should we do??
My husband and I are going to switch our daughter to a delayed schedule for her vaccines. She did have all the normal ones up until 6 months, but with her 12 month right around the corner we are changing gears. She will still get all her vaccines in by the time she goes to school, but we don't see the need for her to have ALL of them on the recommended schedule put out by the government.
I am coming to you moms to see what you did or what revised schedule you followed and perhaps why?
We plan on talking to her doc this week and we know we will get guff for it, but we don't care. This is our child and our life and just because we want to take a slower pace, doesn't mean it is wrong.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts however I don't want rants on why we should follow the standard plan. We are NOT going to, so it would be a wasted email. Again she will get them all, but just in time. So I don't need to get slammed for leaving her unprotected and whatever else can be said. What I am looking for is supportive ideas and suggestions, not only in the method followed, but perhaps even how to break the news to her doc.
Thanks!
I wanted to thank those of you that offered ideas and support on how I should move foward with our decision. I will be checking out Dr. Sears book as well Dr. Stephanie Cave's. They for sure have different methods, but both offer some food for thought. While Dr. Sears appears to be more conservative, Dr. Cave's is just as valuable and I will give it some consideration.
Again I am not against vaccines. I feel they are very important and would never encourage a mother to never get her child vaccinated. However there are methods and paths you can take to get your child the vaccines they need, but it can be done in a more spaced out manner. You do not have to follow the standard schedule and feel like you are putting your child at risk.
I feel sorry for people that assume things about others lives! As parents we have a right to not follow the crowd and still feel the support of other parents around us. I cheer on those who have made a choice to look outside of the box and not trust everything we are told by our government. Using our brains and educating ourselves is power! Even if that means you follow the standard path- at least educate yourself as to what is going into your child instead of blindly accepting what you are told. The fact that today our children are given 34 shots by the age of 2, compared to the 12 I was given in 1975 should raise an eyebrow or two.
Again thankyou for those who offered kind words and I wish everyone, who makes this journey of education, the best of luck!
I'm sure you'll get a ton of responses but here is my short suggestion, get the book called "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Sears. We did and are very happy, its a delayed schedule just like you want and they get all vaccines by school age. Good for you for making this choice :)
L.
J., you are making a wonderful decision! My daughter was 2 1/2 and my son just over one when I made the decision. I am all for vaccines as well, just spacing them apart so they get a maximum of two at a time. The only vaccine I've decided to omit is chickpox, although my daughter got the first shot before I made the decision. I also wish I had waited to get my son's MMR shot at one, but I made the decision later. I definitely recommend Dr. Sears Vaccine Book. He gives information on the vaccines and the illnesses they prevent so you can make an educated decision for yourself and we have decided to follow his alternative vaccine schedule. Also, don't let the pediatrician make you feel bad about your decision. We have actually changed pediatricians since making this decision. If the pediatrician doesn't understand you are only trying to do what is best for your little girl, you may want to look elsewhere. I wish you the best of luck and hopefully your pediatrician understands.
We delayed our kids' vaccinations by a year or two (or more in a couple cases), particularly after our oldest daughter seemed to have a bad reaction to a DTaP combination at a young age (I can't remember for sure but I think she was under 1). She got very sick for over 6 weeks after that shot, and I'm convinced it did something to her system long-term that affected her immune system and overall disposition and health, because there was a marked 'before' and 'after' effect. Our daughters were all small babies, and I think that waiting till they were bigger (after that initial mistake) was a good decision.
In any case we delayed the shots and also spaced them out so that we weren't giving multiple shots simultaneously. You should know that even though the common practice is to give shots by the threes or fours in some cases, you can request that they be given individually, if you think that may be easier on your daughter's system.
We were careful not to give them when the girls were sick, either.
In some cases, kids this age, in this location, have little to no risk factors at all for getting particular diseases. Our kids have absolutely no risk factors for getting hepatitis B at this age, so there was no reason to rush that one, for instance. THat was one we delayed.
We also did not give them varicella or some of the newer, 'optional' vaccines. Our youngest is 3 1/2 now and she hasn't had any problems with any vaccines, and she's up to date with the exception of the optional ones. Our oldest is 13 and I probably will have her do the Gardisil vaccine in time (protects against HPV) - but I'm watching the literature about this in the meantime because it's such a new vaccine. The lack of long-term data concerns me about many of the newer vaccines.
I you are wise to be careful about this issue. As far as telling your doctor, I think the best thing is to very matter-of-factly state that you are going to space out the vaccines so that your daughter will get them, but not all at once and not as early, in some cases. The doctor should absolutely respect your decision. It may make sense to do some vaccines earlier than others, such as the DTaP (or you can actually get them separate, if you insist), because pertussis does go around, and the vaccine can lessen its severity. Personally I am not a strong supporter of that particular vaccine, but what I'm saying is that the doctor may have sound advice about the order or importance of one or another based on disease trends occurring in our area.
If your doctor gives you a hard time about delaying the schedule, it may be time to find a pediatrician who will respect your wishes and work with you -- there are plenty who will (and plenty of moms here can recommend their docs, I'm sure).
By the way, another related thought - the flu vaccines are by and large not helpful because the vaccines are developed months before it is known what strain of flu will emerge. If you think someone may have the flu, the best thing is to go to your doctor immediately and get tested - it's not a pleasant test, but if he or she tests positive and it's within the first day or two of symptoms, you can all take Tamiflu, which is very effective in preventing and reducing the severity of the flu.
We have the Dr. Sears Vaccine book and found it very helpful. We put our daughter on a delayed schedule after her 2 month shots and plan to follow something similar to what you mentioned in your post.
The Sears book is really clear, give you benefits for each drug, who the manufacturers are, what the potential side effects are and the risks involved. There is also an accompanying web site.
Our pediatrician (Dr. Noah at Stapelton Pediatrics) was very kind and understanding of our decision and I have never regretted making it. Our daughter has been very healthy!
I personally had a hard time wrapping my head around so many vaccines and needed time to understand each of them better and decided which ones were right for our baby. I just wanted to make sure we were making informed decisions regarding our daughter's healthcare.
If you click on my name, you'll see that I made a similar post about a delayed schedule seeking input. At the time, I got on the internet and all of these horrible stories popped up that kind of messed with my head. Read the Sears book before you google!
Good luck!
I did the same thing, and our docs were very understanding. My daughter had the planned shots until 12 months, and then at 12 months, I only had the planned boosters for shots she had already had but no new ones. Mostly it was based on a new understanding I had of all these shots and whats in them (I recommend Dr Sears Vaccine book, if you haven't already). I waited on chicken pox until 2 years, and I didn't do MMR until just recently at 2 1/2 years when I was ready to send her to preschool a couple days a week. I would have waited longer on MMR too, but our doc is pretty liberal and still she really had a concern with being in school in Boulder county without MMR shots, because LOTS of parents skip MMR because of all the bad press so the risk of measles here is higher.
Because my daughter is home with me (except now for a couple days of preschool), I didn't worry too much about her catching these illnesses and I had no regrets about waiting for her body to be a little bigger before having these shots.
You need to educate yourselves on the risks of holding out, because there are some. But for me, I wanted to spread out the number of shots she had at one time, and wait for her body to be a little bigger before getting all these meds.
The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears. The BEST book out there about vaccinations. It is a fair and balanced book that gives you all the info you need about vaccines. It also has an alternative vaccine schedule that you can follow. This book is invaluable!!
