February 24, 2018

Researching Vaccinations

Researching Vaccinations

Currently I am 31 weeks pregnant. My friends and doctors keep saying “how prepared,” I am. I got my free breast pump through insurance by 20 weeks, had a hospital tour set up back in October but my doctor recommended delaying until I was further along. I have taken child birthing and basic child care classes, and have registered for my infant CPR class. I researched cord blood banking, got tons of 0-3 month onesies on sale, had the nursery planned, and made sure I registered for CHIP and would have health insurance for my baby. Week by week things were getting crossed off the list until I really only had one thing left, finding a pediatrician.

As of right now I do not have a pediatrician set it stone. I have set up 3 prenatal interviews with different doctors to see which one I like and works best for my baby and I. I prepared a list of questions to ask each of them. What are your hours? Do you have sick patients at certain times of the day, and healthy kids at other times? Do you have a nurse or doctor on call 24 hours in case of emergencies? Same day sick appointments? What is the “schedule” for the first year for well baby visits? What is the vaccination schedule?

I had planned on vaccinating my son according to the doctors recommendations, I got vaccinated as a kid and had no issues except for one time. When I was about 12 the doctor recommended I get the Gardasil vaccination, which prevents a certain strain of HPV that can cause cervical cancer. The vaccine is a series of 3 doses, and after taking the first one I was completely fine. However the second time, I got the vaccination, saw the doctor, and then waited next to the front desk with my mom while she paid the co-pay and made the appointment for the final shot. Suddenly my eyesight started fading.

“Mom, I’m going blind! I can’t see, I can’t see!” I began to freak out. I was totally conscious yet my eyesight was gone. The nurse ran to get the doctor. The doctor began to ask me how many fingers he was holding up, who is he pointing to?

“No you don’t understand I have 0 vision I’m blind, everything is black!” I was explaining to him. At this point my mom started freaking out a little bit, she was yelling at the doctor about the vaccination.

“Has this ever happened before? What are the side effects?” Yeah way to go mom, asking after the fact! LOL. But while my mom was freaking out suddenly I started feeling weird in my body.

“Somethings not right . . . “I had started to say, and then after that I just passed out. I remember the nurses picking me up, and the doctor telling them to bring me into a certain room. But while they were moving me, my mom said I went from “somewhat there” to just completely limp. I was out for about 10 minutes, and when I woke up my eyesight slowly came back just like it slowly left. It was SO WEIRD and an awful experience. The doctor said he had never experienced that before, that maybe I was just stressed from being scared of needles (which I am). But I knew it was the vaccination. I WAS FINE, we were already at the front desk making another appointment, how could it have been “stress” at that point.

I do not know why, but my dad took me back for the third and final dose. It’s funny because I remember my mom coming home after I took that second dose and passed out, and said to my dad

“Greg you can take her to the next appointment! Not only was it a huge commotion and so embarrassing, parents in the waiting room were witnessing this, it scared me to death. She was completely limp! She couldn’t see!”

My dad thought I was being a little over-dramatic about “being blind,” but he did know I passed out. My moms reaction was enough for him to know something more happened than a routine vaccination and doctors visit. He thought if he took me the next time there would be less drama. So the few weeks go by and my dad takes me for the final shot. Beforehand they took my vitals and everything was completely fine. Well this time, the reaction I had wasn’t even delayed like the first time. Within a minute I started getting tunnel vision, then my vision completely left. Within 10 seconds of my vision going I fainted right there on the bench. My father realized I was not being dramatic. I recovered more quickly that time, waking up after 3 minutes or so. I remember in the car on the way home my dad said

“I don’t think your sister will be getting that vaccination.”

Gardasil was so new at the time, I got it within a year of it coming on the market. A few years later when my sisters time rolled around the doctors convinced my dad that the vaccination is much better now, that the first batch “wasn’t that great but now it is much better.” They have only had a few instances of small side effects like a rash around the injection site. So he decided that my sister should get the vaccination. Her second dose she did not pass out but experienced blurry vision for several minutes afterward. So this was my only “bad experience with vaccinations.” I mean it was a horrible experience but out of all the vaccinations my parents had gotten me, we only had issues with Gardasil.

Now back to the point. I was planning on getting my son all standard vaccinations, but last week I took a free basic child care class at Babies R Us. It was crazy because there were 8 couples in the class and we were all due between April 13-28th. A Registered Nurse was teaching the class and brought up how we should all be looking for pediatricians now, and how the “interview” or “consult” should be completely free. She was giving us ideas for questions we should be asking the doctor, and brought up vaccinations.

“Not all parents want to vaccinate their children these days, make sure you ask the doctor if they will still treat your child if you choose not to vaccinate? Are they willing to do delayed vaccination schedules? Do they get vaccinations that don’t contain thimerosal?”

I know about the parents out there who don’t believe in vaccinating. But I didn’t really understand what she meant by a delayed vaccination schedule. I decided to go home and start doing a little more research into vaccinations.

When I went onto Youtube and put in “should I vaccinate my child,” and “Vaccinations for babies,” I watched multiple videos that had me completely convinced to do all CDC recommended vaccinations. They were all “Pro-vaccine,” videos. They brought up how the amount of mercury and aluminum in the vaccinations were so small that it was in no way harmful, and how parents who don’t vaccinate are endangering not only their own children but other children. There were no videos that came up right away for the other side against vaccinations. It wasn’t until I started clicking other videos that I was finding recommendations for documentaries “the truth about vaccines,” and such.

I watched one really great video. It wasn’t FOR or AGAINST vaccinations, it was just information and facts. What I learned was really shocking! Thimerasol has not been tested in vaccinations since the late 1920’s. Studies that were done that said all these vaccinations were safe at one time and the amount of aluminum was safe was in the early 90s when only about 30 doses of 16 vaccinations were given. Now in 2018 we are giving almost 70 doses for more than 30 vaccinations, and there are no studies that were done proving they were safe to give together, OR THE AMOUNTS of Aluminum and Mercury were safe. On top of it all the rates of autism, learning disabilities, and many other developmental issues have increased significantly. Teachers who have taught since the 90s will say there were very few maybe 4-5 children in the entire school with autism. Now there are 30-50 easily every year! They noticed a huge difference in the amount of students who have autism vs. two decades ago. There is no studies that link the amount of vaccinations and increase of mercury intake with the rise in autism, but some doctors have said that environmental factors alone can’t be to blame. Many think that the increase in vaccinations is a serious clue to what might be causing these developmental issues, learning disabilities, ADHD and neurological issues in kids. All this information was very shocking!

Now I’m a little bit more weary about “just doing what the CDC recommends,” and giving my son all of these vaccinations. I know there are vaccinations I will give my son, however I will not give him 8 different doses of different vaccines in one day, especially at 2, 4 & 6 months old. If I took 8 different drugs at one time, how could I not expect to have side effects? I would be more shocked if I had no side effects! 

I haven’t come up with an exact solution yet. I told my boyfriend we are going to spend the weekend researching each vaccination the CDC recommends. What it is for? What are the benefits to getting it? What are the risks of getting it? What have the side effects been? Has any research been done? Have they even been tested?  Down the list of all 30+ of these vaccinations. Then looking at delayed or alternative schedules, slowly overtime vs. 8 in one shot. Then when I go on my interviews with my pediatricians I will have all my research done and know exactly what to ask. I will be able to make a smart decision about who is providing care to my child, and  that they respect me as a parent, just like I will respect them as the doctor.

The bottom line: RESEARCH EVERYTHING. I researched how to get a free breast pump, which stroller I wanted, whether or not I should cord blood bank. I put time into getting more information about each of those things, vaccinations should definitely be something to look into. It’s for sure confusing and much more work than every other item on my baby registry or cord blood banking, but worth the time. This is my babies health, his brain, his body and I am responsible for all of it. If anything happens to him, only I can be to blame. For example if I one day thought I needed to give my baby a fever reducer and all I had in the house was aspirin for adults. If I took the time to just google “can I give my baby adult aspirin?” I would quickly find out this is a very bad idea. If I didn’t do that and he wound up in the hospital, well who’s fault is that? If I let him take 8 vaccinations at a time, several times, and put all this heavy metal into his body, then he starts having developmental delays, whose fault is that? It’s not only the doctors for giving it to me, but my own fault for not asking the proper questions and not doing the research.

It’s so sad that it comes to this! That you can’t just do something as simple as vaccinate your child without needing to question everything! Even with research you really don’t know that what you’re giving your baby is 100% safe because no studies have been done! It makes me sad that it is dangerous to go to your pediatricians office, many kids go in completely fine and come out totally changed. As a new mom this scares me tremendously. I only hope I make the right decisions, when it comes to my sons health, it is a mistake I cannot afford to make. 

How do you feel about vaccinations? Do you think the current CDC vaccination schedule is fine or overboard? Did you vaccinate your kids according to this schedule? Let me know, I want to hear your thoughts!

 

As always thanks for reading!

Xoxo,

Serena

 

 

 

 

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