Disclaimer: While I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and ideas, this is clearly one of those “mommy wars” type topics and this is just not the place for that. So in the words of my awesome friend Taylor over at Dear Olympia…, I will delete comments Chinese Government Style! LOL!!!
**A note on my photographers! If you happen to be located in NorCal or California in general. Please look them up. They are absolutely amazing!
Instead of giving you a ridiculously long list of the reasons that we chose to vaccinate I want to talk about some of the things people say to me when they don’t agree with me. First of all, from our perspective its not really a matter of choice. Its not like we sat down and really thought about it, and did any sort of investigative work. That’s not to say we just willy nilly run around like sheep just following the heard. I say that to illustrate exactly how important we feel the decision to vaccinate is.
1) People have said, “oh its a big scheme by pharmaceutical companies to make money.” I’m not really sure how to respond to that without sounding sarcastic. I don’t mean to be. When it was common for people to die from these diseases, I’m don’t feel like anyone was out to make money, and only now when people don’t die daily from them do I hear that argument. Anyone heard the phrase “prevention is key?” My husband and I firmly believe that in order to keep these diseases from coming back prevention is key.
2) What are the odds? I once had a conversation with someone talking to me about the odds of their child being exposed to this. In her mind the odds weren’t great and that was reason enough. She was upset about the fact that the Tetnus and Pertussis were combined. And here’s a perfect reasoning for my argument previously mentioned. She does very limited vaccinations, however one that she did want to get is Pertussis. Why? Because we are seeing a rise in Pertussis. Anyway, back to this discussion. In my book, when it comes to the health of my child, any risk is too great of a risk. If we were in a car accident and someone the blood of someone in another car that had HepA got into a cut on my child, well to me there’s no need to further discussion.
3) They wouldn’t die from the diseases today. Okay, that’s nice but why wait to cause my child suffering when they can prevent it. Mumps can sterilize a boy. Do I want to tell my son that someday? What about Polio? My husband’s grandfather died of polio, and I worked with several people who had physical disabilities because of it. Tetanus can be life threatening, even with modern medicine. And just because you clean a cut out doesn’t mean the bacteria can’t get it.
4) If you breastfed then your immunities pass on to your child. Breastfeeding may enhance immunitiy to your child, but I haven’t been convinced that somehow your child will be protected from life-threatening illness because you breastfeed. And in any case, the argument is usually, “I was vaccinated so I pass on that immunity.” To me, that doesn’t add up. Not to mention the fact that some woment don’t breastfeed and some people have issues, and I’ll just leave it at that.
I think I’ve covered most of the important issues for us. I want everyone to feel confident in their own selves as a parent. and while I appreciate everyone’s right to make their own deciions, I feel like vaccinating isn’t really a topic of debate. I feel like everyone should vaccinate and it concerns me that my newborn could be exposed to someone who in’t, because I do venture out when they are younger then the age to vaccinate. Its really not a matter of me not respecting everyone’s choice as a parent. It is just my personal feeling that vaccination should be a given.