Gentle parenting and Vaccination

[luscious Laura]

Hello everyone!

I was just wondering if I could get a bit of help/advice/point in the right direction about vaccinations.

It's a really contentious issue, I know, and I'm certainly not trying to start up the great debate.... I was just wondering about what are the alternatives to the govt issue vaccines.


I myself have been vaccinated for everything, though only the Hep B vaccine was my choice. My parents just got us vaccinated for everything.

I actually don't have any real problem with the idea of getting Luxxe vaccinated.... but I've been doing a bit of research on the interweb and I've decided that I do have a problem with the additives in the vaccines...oh and the needles too... but mostly the additives.


SO - I'm wondering if there are other options that I just don't know about and others do and can help me with.

I know vaguely that there are natural therapy options (would love info on these) .... or i could just do nothing ... or are there vaccines without the heavy metal additives?


any help would be greatly appreciated.



xxx
Laura

[Trillian]

This is a very contenious issue, but ultimately the right to choose is yours.

A woman who lives near me chose a homeopathic route for her children, but even so, her children are still excluded from school whenever there is an outbreak of disease. So for me, that would be the only downside of not having them vaccinated because it is the policy of most NSW schools and pre-schools to exclude students who are not vaccinated (please correct me if I am wrong about this - it may be different in VIC) for the duration of any outbreak of disease, regardless of whether your child gets it.

If you want to go homeopathic, any Homeopath worth their salt should be able to give you some information.

HTH

[Janet]

There are a number of books about this, Laura, and if you contact me privately I can give you some web resources to kickstart your wider search.

[Melbo]

Sherie, is correct, it is your right to choose whether or not you have your children vaccinated but read up on reasons for and against before deciding. Robin Barker in her book "Baby Love" has a very well-balanced discussion on the issue.

Edited to add: My personal decision is to vaccinate my child, based on the belief that the diseases are far worse than the slight risk of any adverse reaction.

[Lucy]

A GF of mine has chosen to go the homeopathic route in comparison to the scheduled vaccinations for both her children. As such the kids are excluded from daycare/school if an outbreak occurs. (This is in SA.)

I did a lot of research into this issue before I had Olivia, and our personal choice was, eventually, to go the scheduled vaccinations.

Olivia has since had a case of septic arthritus (which is vaccinated against, but she still contracted it "mildly".) She was hospitalised for 5 days and the orthopedic surgeon indicated that had she not been vaccinated, she would have been in a much much more dangerous situation. Does not bear thinking about, for me, so I am now glad we made the choice to vaccinate.

As such, Charlie is also having the full vaccinations.

[BellyBelly]

A friend of mine also does homeopathic vaccinations - I will see if I can send her this link as she is a member

[kylie]

Thanks for sending me this way, Kelly.

My 2 girls are both homeopathically vaccinated and for us it's working well. I wasn't sold on traditional vaccination, yet I didn't feel comfortable doing "nothing" either. My girls have had some traditional vaccinations, but that was before I had fully researched and made a decision. The next baby will be having no traditional vaccinations, except possibly tetanus as this is something that you can't build up immunity to.

Good luck with your decision, it's a very hard one to make.

[Fi]

We decided to fully vaccinate - I just made the decision based on what felt right for us.
MY brother and his wife are conscientious objectors to most of the vaccines, but they have done a couple of traditional ones - I know they did whooping cough.
I talked to my GP about the options before starting Jenna, and she said - its entirely your choice, but if possible, I'd like to give you a video on children with whooping cough so at the least get that one. Apparently it wasn't a very nice video........

[christy]

I've done half & half. I refused anything in hospital but at 2 months I had her medically(?) vaccinated then at 4 months I had homeopathic vaccinations start and then at 1 year I did injection vaccinations. I had the triple ordered in and paid a whopping amount for it but as she was having issues in day care I decided it was necessary to use the medical vaccinations, but I definately researched & chose how they would be delivered. HTH!

[~Jo~]

We have chosen not to vaccinate. At 2 months of age my eldest dd had a reaction and I then started doing some research. There is a huge amount of information that can be found though not from drs as they are funded by pharmaceautical companies. We have not had the slightest problem whatsoever. The kids are all incredibly healthy. I have noticed that it seems to have become alot more common now..as with Sammy I didnt get the usual brow beating I had with the girls regarding not vaccinating. We have never had a problem with school at all just citing departmental policy on removing the children if there is any outbreak. Goodluck in making your decision.

Jo

[Phteven]

After some though DH and I decided to get our children fully vaccinated. Our reasoning for this was that we felt that as well as our responsibilty to our children we also had a wider social responsibility. We hope to travel with our children in the future not just in developed nations but also in less developed areas where children are far more vunerable to disease. Whilst healthy well nourished western children might usually find it possible to shake off childhood diseases such as measles, in a community with lower standards of sanitation and nutrition such as some Aboriginal communities in Australia or villages in Afghanistan an outbreak of measles could have potentially devastating consequences. Rather than risk introducing diseases into communities that we might travel to we decided to vaccinate.

[BellyBelly]

With Marisa I thought I had to do it and had no idea, with Elijah he is behind in his vaccs because I couldn't make up my mind. But if I have more babies, I will definitely defer any vaccs until the 2 month ones in the least (dont like the idea of vaccs as a welcome to the world!) and I will ask for oral vitamin K over the injection.

[christy]

Laura there is definately a lot of propeganda on both sides. But the great thing is you have a choice as a parent. Here are some of my decision makers:

1. I didn't want Matilda to get Hep B. I'm pretty strong about that one. So I wanted her to have it, but at 2 months rather than birth because I didn't want to put additives in her body at such a young age before all the good stuff goes into her. So, she was vaccinated with needles at 2 months and 6 months. Once I finished bf I decided that her Hep B needed to be up to date.

2. I used homeopathic vaccinations and when I did use medical ones, I would get some drops from the homeopath to help boost her body against the additives used, or I would buy the different vaccination. It wasn't cheap, but I firmly believed that $$ didn't matter in this case.

3. When Matilda entered day care I used homeopathic drops again for diseases such as chicken pox and pneumococcal. So she didn't have regular vaccinations but I knew she had some protection.

4. Homeopathic Vaccinations are similar to medical ones, they take bits of the virus' and mix them with agents to help boost the immune system to create antibodies. With both homeopathic vaccinations and medical ones you can appear to see mild side effects which is the bodies way of developing those antibodies which help fight diseases.

I know it gets confusing and frustrating, but have a look at individual diseases and virus' and decide what is most important to you & for Luxxe.

[~Jo~]

Laura you have done heaps of research which is great. Its just amazing how much stuff you can find out there. I based alot of my decision on vaccinations bypassing the bodies natural defence mechanisms by injecting it straight into the bloodstream..this does not happen with exposure to measles for example. Sorta scared me a little. Im sure you will be able to come to a decision that is right for you and Luxxe. I have to agree though...there are is a lot of propoganda out there for both sides.

Jo

[hannanat]

Hi,
I have an autistic 4 year old. She was fully immunised as were her brothers and sister up until the last brother who had half of the scheduled vaccines. When my daughter was diagnosed, her metabolic specialist said that her autism MAY have been caused by her 6 month injections as she was admitted to Westmead the following day. I will probably immunise my baby at 2 months like the other ladies, but I think one of the most important things is to have the vaccines given in single doses rather than all together eg. separate shots for measles mumps and rubella etc. Anything you can do to reduce the shock to your babies system can only make it easier for them to handle.[/u]

[jodie]

Although vaccination does result in a reaction in some cases and the child can still catch the virus it is nowhere near as severe in a vaccinated child. A friend of mums had a 4 year old girl in intensive care for 2 weeks and nearly die from chicken pox because her mother did not vaccinate (not from an informed conscience decision, just too lazy to go to doc's).

[Hayley]

Hi Laura,

I am going thru this at the moment too> We did the 2/4/6month vacc's without even questioning them. Now we are running behind on the 12 month ones as I felt really guilty for not finding out about the vacc's and making an informed choice, rather than going with the flow.....but since I started researching 2months ago, the whole issue has become incredibly complicated. There is no easy answer.

On the mumps, I found out that in the US, the vacc's seem to be wearing off after 15-20years, so now uni students are getting mumps......

It is also SO hard to find non-biased info. One of my biggest concerns is that in 20 years time scientists will discover that a certain vaccination caused cancer or something. I also worry about the additives.

If and when we do vacc again, I am sure that it will be selectively. For example, I would prefer our son to get chicken pox and build up a stronger immunity that way; however I really don't want him to get ill with menn C........good luck in working out decisions!

[Coolabahdee]

All of my children are fully immunised. Without a doubt our next baby will be as well. Never heard of the homeopathic immunisations but will read up on it, sounds interesting. Is it just as effective as medical ones?

I do have a strong and unwaivering view that all children should be immunised as I have a friend whose son who was born perfectly healthy, is now 12, he was inadvertantly exposed to meningitis when he was only about 5 weeks old it caused brain damage and he was a very sick baby, then while he was still too young for his needles exposed to measles and ended up losing his hearing in one ear and some in the other and is considered Clinically blind.

This statement is not meant as a scare tactic it is only my opinion and it has to be the parents choice, BUT IMO doing nothing to prevent such illnesses from occuring is just plain negligence. I like the idea of homeopathic and if they work just the same then I think they should be made available on the schedule to give parents a greater choice.
They don't remember the needle, the chances of having a real reaction to a vacine is far outwayed by the actual chance of contracting the disease.

I do have to add that I was and will be again (oneday) a Registered Nurse, so I maybe a little biased in my opinion, lol.
Ta Dee