Well, my daughter is 2 months old already, and today was the day for her first vaccines! I am scared...
Before you assume I'm one of those anti-vaccine extremists, be assured I am not. However, neither am I an all out pro-vaccine activist or one of the many blind followers of them. I find that I fall somewhere in the middle in the cautious parent category, I suppose. I try to educate myself in all things at least as much as I can, and when it comes to people jabbing my baby daughter with needles filled with diseases (dead or alive), you can bet I'm gonna do my research!
Immunizations have always been scary to me, and not always for the same reason, but when you look at the nature of what they are, it really ties it in to the same perspective. When I was 6 years old, I can still remember getting my immunizations for school. I remember the huge needle going into my arm, I remember crying, and then I can remember the little round band-aid the nurse put on me that she drew a smiley face on. It was scary back then because my young mind knew there was something very unnatural about stabbing people with needles. Today, my more developed mind knows I was right way back then, and still agrees. But now I know the reasons behind immunizations, and understand why we do them.
My mother caught the devastating Polio virus when she was all of 4 years old. Though she was lucky enough to have survived it, she has been crippled ever since, especially now that she is in her 60's and experiencing what all Polio survivors know as Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS), or a return of their childhood Polio symptoms. My mom now has to walk with a cane or walker and use a wheelchair when she needs to get somewhere that is too far to walk, and she is plagued with chronic fatigue and weak muscles. Unfortunately, it will never get better for her as she ages, only worse. So, it was a blessing in her eyes that the Polio vaccine was developed. That way, she could be assured that her children would be spared such a devastating and often fatal disease.
There's another side to vaccines, though. A scary, unknown side that makes many people weary of them nowadays. The fear is that they could be the cause of any number of serious health conditions that plague the population today. But how would we know? How could we know unless science proved it? The fact is, no one has proved anything, so all we can do is trust the doctor. It is terrifying to think that I could unknowingly be injecting my daughter with something that could potentially harm her health. But, on the other hand, no one wants their child to catch the horrible diseases that vaccines prevent. And one thing's for sure, I'm not blind to the fact that vaccines definitely prevent diseases.
Though I am not against children receiving immunizations, when my daughter was born, we were asked whether or not we wanted her to receive the routine Hep B vaccine before she left the hospital, and we declined. They didn't ask why, but for the benefit of this blog, I will tell you we did so for several reasons. First of all, what kind of message are we giving our brand new baby by inflicting instant pain on them? Welcome to the world, baby! Don't worry, we're you're Mommy & Daddy and we're going to protect you--JAB!!! Trust me, if I'd had any control over my baby getting the PKU test and random blood sugar tests (both of which require pricking of their tiny newborn feet to get blood) I would have declined that too. And yes, if my baby was a boy, we would have declined circumcision for that same reason (among others, but that's another story). The second reason we opted not to get the Hep B vaccine at birth is because what newborn infant's immune system is so well developed that they can immediately receive a fat dose of disease to fight off? Especially when you learn that a baby's immune system isn't even fully developed until sometime in their 2nd month!
What happens when you get a vaccine is the same thing that happens whenever your body comes across bacteria, viruses or another foreign invader. It fights to kill it, and while it is doing this, the immune system is compromised (or more understandably, preoccupied). When your immune system is compromised, that's when you get sick. So, I wasn't all that keen on making my baby sick the second she made her debut. And considering (reason #3) what the Hep B vaccine actually is (a sexually transmitted disease) gave me confidence that she wouldn't likely be catching it in her infancy anyway, so it was probably safe to wait.
My husband brought home several books on children vaccines to read before our baby was even born. One of them I liked in particular because it was unbiased, siding on neither pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. Written by a doctor, it merely stated the facts. In explaining what the Hep B vaccine is for, I will quote him:
"Hep B is a sexually transmitted virus that causes liver damage and sometimes liver failure. It can be fatal. Besides being transmitted through unprotected sex, hep B can also be passed on by the sharing of IV drug needles, the use of improperly sterilized tattoo needles, or an accidental stick with an infected needle. So any baby who participates in one of the above-mentioned risky activities could catch hepatitis B." -Robert W. Sears, M.D. in The Vaccine Book
So there it is. Those were our reasons not to vaccinate her at birth. That didn't mean, however, that we were never going to give her the Hep B vaccine. I am aware of it's severity. If she were to catch it, it would be devastating, so that is the reason they offer it at birth. Because if any mother had Hep B, she would almost certainly pass it on to her baby unless that baby was immediately immunized. Since I know I don't have hep B, and have been vaccinated against it several times, I felt we were safe.
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