Should You Vaccinate Your Child?

Each week, our Moms Talk Q&A looks at questions and topics raised by local moms. Members of our JP Patch Moms Council will answer your questions and offer their thoughts.

This week the panel invites discussion about vaccinations, including HPV, chicken pox and MMR. 

I am puzzled, and angered, by parents in developed countries who deliberately opt out.

My three children have had all the standard vaccinations. I feel that we are extremely privileged to live in an era and a part of the world in which advances in the field of medicine have reached the point where we can now prevent millions of deaths every year through immunization.

As parents we are immensely lucky not to have to suffer the pain of losing our children to diseases such as measles or polio. For this reason I am puzzled, and angered, by parents in developed countries who deliberately opt out of immunization programs while relying on those who responsibly vaccinate to ensure the survival of their own children.

My husband and I follow the various vaccination scares (such as the supposed link between autism and MMR) very carefully. However so far, in our opinion, the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks suggested by what we consider to be a minority of scaremongers.

My younger daughter won't have the HPV vaccine

I vaccinate my children, but not for everything.

I was a young mother when my first was born — all of 21 (and a half).  When they gave her shots her first week of life, I had no objections (other than that she was screaming her head off). I just wanted my baby to be healthy. And I didn't ask too many questions, so I was surprised when they said she had been vaccinated for the chicken pox.

Five and a half years later, my second baby got her battery of shots too. I asked a few more questions, but I didn't really have any objections.  At around this time, I was starting to hear that some people believed vaccines were linked to autism. I have an autistic sister born in 1978.  Gosh, I would love that theory to be true. It would explain a phenomenon that caused my family misery and ostracism when I was younger.  But so far it has not been proven, extreme efforts of a certain British doctor notwithstanding.

When babies three and four were four months old, I developed a mild case of shingles. As a result, my babies caught the chicken pox.  Still, my pediatrician wanted to give them the vaccine. When I mentioned this to a friend, she urged me to get them tested. If they have the antibodies, they don't need it. They were tested, and indeed, they did.  No extra shots for them.

My oldest daughter was in the target age range when the HPV vaccine came out.  I didn't want her to suffer from a preventable STD when she was older if I could stop it, so I agreed. When she nearly threw up after the second shot, I was taken aback. She'd never done that before.

Then I found out she wasn't alone. I have no idea why, but a lot of girls react negatively. Which may very well be acceptable, but the fact that no one warned me left a bad taste in my mouth, and I didn't opt to get the third shot.  I've also decided that my younger daughter won't have any at all.

Which is all to say, I get what people are concerned about.  I don't want to introduce anything into my children's bodies that they don't need. But when I hear about infants dying of whooping cough because the older children around them haven't been vaccinated for it, I'm appalled. If we live among others, our choices affect them too.

Also, having just read 1491, which suggests that European viruses might have wiped out 95 percent of the pre-1492 population in the Americas, it amazes me that people would willingly choose to expose themselves to diseases when they have a choice. History would have looked a lot different if those populations had had the necessary protection.

P.S. If you can't believe that the Americas could have been so densely populated before 1492, there is much more evidence for that than that vaccines will harm you.

: I went to a "lollipop party" and I hosted one

When my first child was born, doctors had just started giving newborns the Heb B vaccine. Somehow I didn't understand that the risk of Hep B was usually through sexual contact and at six hours old they injected him with the vaccine. Now why we were giving a newborn that vaccine was beyond me, but later I  felt as though it was promoted by the drug companies — it is a major industry in our country.

I was also young and had been taught to trust doctors, they have your best interest at heart. I let them give my first everything on schedule. By the time my second was born I had thought more about the process and really felt as though the time frame of immunizations and the multiple ones at once just seemed like over-kill and were done more for convenience than for the well-being of the baby.

I was nursing and trusted that my anti-bodies were giving my baby everything for awhile to protect him and that I would ease them into his system when he wasn't nursing and was walking and talking. My pediatrician, Dr. Bastian, was fabulous. He allowed me to take my time and argued in favor of DPt and said MMR could wait. (I had all of those naturally as a baby) and my understanding was the managing the disease was far better for your general well-being than an injection that also has questionable preservatives and additives.

I was able to give my child less in the long run and didn't have them coupled together so that we could monitor behavior and response.  I had worked for Christine Luthra, a homeopathic doctor that lived on Rockview and was a bit more skeptical of the motivations of immunizations and the involvement of the industry. There is no doubt vaccines have saved lives. I wanted to protect my children but I also thought we were too aggressive on young bodies.

I never gave my children the chicken pox vaccine. They both developed it on their own. I believe I looked for other children who had it and exposed them to it. Have you heard of  "lollipop parties"?   I went to one and I hosted one. My boys were six and 12 and had delightful cases that were definitely powerful enough not to spring up again. I know plenty of children who received the vaccine only to catch the real thing later.

In the long run I did all the vaccines. But I thought about it the second time and decided to take my time and let my child grow awhile before I injected him. Both boys are healthy. Knock on wood.