Should I Vaccinate my Child?

I am not anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine, but I am anti-do-what-you’re-told-and-don’t-ask-questions and pro-informed. Dare I comment on one of the most controversial topics in America? If there is one thing that drives me nuts, it’s not being allowed to ask questions. It’s being forced to accept something because the medical profession tells me to and feeling bullied into “what’s best” as if I’m just too stupid to possibly comprehend the complexity of the situation. I’m smarter than I look.

When my first son was about 15 hours old, a nurse/doctor/janitor – some lady I had never met before- came barging in prepared to give my son his Hep B vaccine. Hep B? I was confused. Why would he need that? I was actually a little concerned, wondering if something was wrong. Was there an STD outbreak in the hospital? Was he in danger? A hepatitis-ridden baby napper loose in the halls? Did a test come back saying I had Hep B? What is Hep B anyways?

My confusion was met with anger. This person had no time for my questions. This was what was best for my child (at least in her opinion), and she wasn’t going to explain anything to one more hippie who googled a no-bake granola recipe and accidentally happened upon an anti-vaccine article by which she now hung her child’s life and ultimately the demise of planet earth.

Please accept my apologies over-worked, over-tired hospital lady who has no time to answer my question “why would he need a Hep B vaccine as a newborn?” You see for the better part of a year, I have been day and night growing this child inside of me. Until only hours ago, I was the only person who had ever held him, nourished him, protected him, and I was the only person responsible for his safety. I didn’t eat deli meat or seafood, I quit drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. I never took as much as a Tylenol for the the sometimes unbearable pain that pregnancy brought on, because it might somehow negatively affect this fragile life inside of me. Now, after he is recovering from the trauma of being born, you are asking to inject a foreign substance into his body to protect him from something that, to my knowledge, does not pose a danger to him. 

My question was answered smugly with “I don’t understand people’s issue. If there was a vaccine for the common cold, I would give it to my child. Why wouldn’t you want to keep your child safe from harmful diseases?”

At this time, having just spent 22 hours in labor and feeling overwhelmed by hospital staff, as well as the new and exciting role of motherhood, I had no comeback. I didn’t realize vaccines were such a controversial issue. I just knew that a lady with a needle was way too eager to poke my son, and she couldn’t answer a very basic question. I opted to wait until his three month visit and have his pediatrician do the shot.

In the two years that followed, my son followed the vaccine schedule with typical reactions. He had irritation at the site of the shot, followed by crankiness and clinginess and sometimes a mild fever or diarrhea. I found out quickly that I was not to ask questions about vaccines. Even asking “what is this one for” seemed to get you grouped in with “one of those” mothers who threatened the health of America with her curiosity. In the beginning, I dutifully read over the paperwork and even browsed the CDC site, but as the joys, struggles and business of motherhood soon made upkeeping a baby book impossible, I found that I no longer even kept track of when they were due, what was due, what he had gotten or why he had gotten it.

Just before my oldest was two years old, his little brother was born. Little brother did not handle his first round of vaccines as well. He got giant welts at the site of the injection, he cried inconsolably, and he seemed agitated for days that followed. I started doing a little internet research and found some compelling information that these vaccines may be carrying more than his little body could handle. Yes, I wanted to safeguard him from the dangers in the world, but not at the risk of disarming him of his natural ability to thrive. I was also learning that the effective rate of many vaccines was not as I had hoped. The side-effects were more severe and prevalent than I had expected, and the testing before being released to the public was unsettling. Even the wording on the CDC website was unnerving. Everything read as if it was spun, and there were no straight answers provided. Instead of simply saying one in so many children have a severe reaction, it read one in one million injections. We know the average child gets over 70 injections in their lifetime so this did not give an accurate depiction. Also, if it was deemed unsafe for immunosuppressed children, wasn’t it at least more dangerous for a child with a weakened immune system?

My son’s pediatrician simply told me “children are resilient.” Are they? Childhood cancer, diabetes, developmental disorders, allergies and autoimmune disorders are all on the rise. What if children aren’t resilient? What if in our efforts to safeguard our children from illness, we are stressing their bodies so severely that they are incapable of fighting off so much as the common cold, let alone the plethora of disease that we don’t have immunizations for? Our children’s immune systems are their greatest protection from a world that threatens them, and at what cost do we give that up?

After my youngest son struggled with his first round of vaccines, I told the doctor that I wanted to split them up. It was too much on his little body all at once to introduce so many toxins and live vaccines. He wasn’t handling it well. His pediatrician thought I was overreacting, she fought me tooth and nail. She laughed at me, rolled her eyes at me, and made me feel like an irresponsible mother. I left crying regularly and finally found a different doctor. This time it was so much worse that I actually returned to the previous doctor because at least being bullied was better than being ignored.

When my son got his DTaP around nine months old, he cried for longer than usual before becoming lethargic and momentarily unresponsive. His doctor told me it was just because he became so overtired from crying. She blamed his moodiness and commonly irritable personality for the inconsolable tears.

That was the last vaccine my son received. He was later diagnosed with autism and sensory processing disorder.

If I’m being honest, I don’t believe that one single vaccination gave him autism. I believe that it was one of many things that over-stressed his body and prohibited him from developing properly. I believe that unlike the age-old belief that children are resilient, they are, in fact, very fragile.

I do not argue that every vaccine, for every child, is always wrong all of the time. I argue that living in a world that is so closed off to the possibility that it could be harmful to a particular child at a particular time is dangerous.

I’m not a doctor, I’m a Mom, I don’t know enough to tell anybody else what to do, and maybe I’m not even educated enough to dare question the almighty medical doctor, but I have common sense. My common sense tells me that we are over-vaccinating and some of our children are suffering for it.

I’m not here to argue with doctors or convince anyone that what they are doing is wrong or unsafe. I am here talking to the Mom who already knows but needs to hear someone else say it. Ask questions! Get answers! Look deeper! Be informed! Our children deserve nothing less. This entry