Sunshine and Saram I read both of your posts nodding my head in agreement. Saram I get what you are saying completely your reasons for not immunising and mine are duplicated. Until I could be assured that my child would have no long term ill effects I would not inject her...

Liz: I think the immune system development was clarified earlier as being underdeveloped.
I find it incredible that your child was discharged from NICU and vaccination was not discussed! No child gets out of RBWH NICU without immunisation unless there are extenuating circumstances. This is one of the largest NICU's in Australia. It is actually hospital policy - and I had a steady stream of specialists in to tell me the danger I was putting my child in. They of course were correct on a level. Imogen due to her severe prematurity (for those of you who don't know she was born at 28 weeks) had and still does have a crippled immune system. She catches things far more easilty than her full term brother and sisters. Like another poster my home is a "toxic free zone". I use no chemicals in our house, we eat largely organic produce and little pre packaged food. Sleep and rest is important and I use complimentary therapies such as homeopathy when illness does strike.

Immunised children who contract the disease they have been immunised against generally have a less severe illness than if they had not been immunised.
I remember my neighbour whenI was a child had measles and he was so badly affected (he must have developed meningitis) that he was disabled afterward. I remember it being such a big and sad thing in the small town we lived in.

We also have to look in our society at how we utilise antibiotics. Wonderful wonderful lfesaving drugs but so very over used. Antibiotics do not cure a cold or a flu as these are viral illnesses. However, so many people dont feel like they have been looked after properly if they live the docs without a script.

In my Grandmas day scarlet fever was about - children were kept at homefor months because of it. My Grandma lost her sister to whooping cough. Unfortunately it still happens.

Is immunisation the ansewer? I can't dispute that immunisation helps keep the illnesses at bay -- we don't live in an age where we can remember polio. It was a dreadful illness irradicated maybe due to immunisation (or was it just the natural course of events... ) I have spoken to adult survivors of polio - really it was just a tragedy. Travel to India and you begin to think immunisation is necessity. I just wonder if it is personally. We have good food, water, sleep, top class medical facilities. I know my family is a small study but none is vaccinated. We just don't seem to catch the bugs that go around. My girlfriend who is immunised to the hilt her kids all had measles int he recent outbreak that closed a school around here. My kids did't even have a sniffle but had played withhers frequently beforehand. I know that doesn't prove anything. It just makes me wonder. My kids wade in the mud, catch tadpoles int he creek, garden, clean out the chook pen. I wonder if our society has become too clean, too tidy, too sterile. Just a thought...