Vaccines

Summary: Make smart immunization decisions for your children by reading The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Sears and his accompanying web site.

Being pregnant with twins, I had to reduce my activity and not really do much for several months. I had a lot of time to do research on the Internet and read books, so that's exactly what I did. My catalyst for looking into vaccines was seeing the schedule of vaccines my babies were going to be put through. Oh my goodness, there are a lot.


The recommended vaccine schedule can be found here. If you look at this, that's 8 immunization at their two month checkup - Hepatitus B, Rotavirus, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hib, Pneumococcal, and Polio. And, why oh why were they getting vaccinated for Hep B in the hospital when they are just born? It's basically an STD and if the mother doesn't have Hep B, the risk is super low that the baby would get it... only a blood transfusion would do it.

I had also heard about mercury (thimerosal is the term they use in the immunization world) and how horrible it is. I learned that this is only in some forms of flu shots; the rest of the immunizations have been reformulated to not use mercury. And there's also the controversy over the MMR and autism. All of this information is enough to make any mother scared for her children. It also may lead some to the question of whether or not to vaccinate their kids. All of this led me to...

The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Sears. This book is extremely informative. It tells you what all the vaccines are for, how they are made, the pros and cons of getting them. It's actually a fascinating read if you care about this topic. Dr. Sears also gives an alternate immunization schedule which resonated with me more than the AAP schedule. For me, I believe in the value of immunizing my children, I just want it to be as safe as possible for them.

If you're wondering, I've personally decided to wait on the Hep B vaccine until my kids are teenagers, and am otherwise basically following the alternate schedule. I also read a lot on the HPV vaccine that is widely advertised on TV. Wow, now that one is so highly political and it's not even proven that it prevents cervical cancer. I don't have to decide on that one for my daughter for a lot of years and I'm glad because I don't feel the research is there at this point. What's my source for this? I started at the vaccine book site and went to many of the source articles.