Do (did) you vaccinate your children?

[ImAhomeSCHOOLmama]

Why and how did you come to your decision?

 

No debates please. A personal choice. Just wondering what yours was and why you decided that way.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I did have my kids vaccinated because I thought the benefits outweighed the risks.

[....]

Yep, ours get their vaccinations. Why? We were very young when we got married and had our first kid, so we didn't really question anything the pediatrician recommended. :D

[ChristusG]

I vaccinated when my children were babies because I didn't know any better. It was something that you just did......no one had informed me that I could do any differently. I didn't even really think about it.

 

But then I began reading, researching, et and I decided to stop vaxing my kids. At that time my oldest had just turned four and my youngest had just turned one. So my oldest is vaccinated till two years old (she didn't require any after that until five, so she hasn't gotten those). And my youngest is vaccinated till 9 months.

 

In the future I may choose to selectively vax them....I'm not sure. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I've been thinking about the tetanus vaccine. I haven't come to a conclusion on it yet. If my kids reach their older teens without contracting chicken pox, I may choose to have a titer done. If they are not immune, I may choose for them to get the vaccine....I've heard that getting shingles is horrible. If they choose to go off to college and live in dorms, we may consider the meningitis vaccine. But like I said, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

 

For us, for now, I feel comfortable with no further vaccinations at the moment.

[MaMa2005]

We vaccinate, but on a very slow schedule (one booster shot per year). We do a lot of traveling overseas and wanted DS to be protected as much as possible.

 

Our pediatrician does the slow schedule because we homeschool. At DS's 4 year check up, he said that all the 4 year vaccines were not required, but could be done one per year. He gave us an interesting piece of information, though. We, as a society, have required that children get so many vaccinations at one time because we have put them in day care, pre-school and school so early. Many, many moons ago most vaccinations were not completed until a child was six or seven.

[StartingOver]

We selectively vaccinate. I came to the decision after realizing how many more vaccinations are required now. When I was a child I had to have 8 by 5 years old. My older children had to have 13. My babies now are recommended to have 28 + a yearly flu shot before age 5. That is huge !!

 

I do not do chicken pox, rotavirus period. My daughter can not have flu, or MMR due to allergies. All the others we get one at a time.... with at least 3 months between. My son got the MMR after the age of 2.

 

I think it is way to many toxins going into our very young, not fully developed children. Reading vaccine ingredient lists are SCARY !

[ImAhomeSCHOOLmama]

I think it is way to many toxins going into our very young, not fully developed children. Reading vaccine ingredient lists are SCARY !

 

 

That was what made me look into it! (I am about to say something that was MY IGNORANT thoughts on the subject, people grow and this is my thoughts, please NO OFFENSE)

Before I had kids and researched it I thought, why WOULDNT a parent want to vaccinate. What a disservice. Well, then when I HAD kids, and saw how many they would "need" I did start looking and was flabbergasted! That has brought me to my current dillemma!

[StartingOver]

That was what made me look into it! (I am about to say something that was MY IGNORANT thoughts on the subject, people grow and this is my thoughts, please NO OFFENSE)

Before I had kids and researched it I thought, why WOULDNT a parent want to vaccinate. What a disservice. Well, then when I HAD kids, and saw how many they would "need" I did start looking and was flabbergasted! That has brought me to my current dillemma!

 

 

I didn't even think about it with my older children. It wasn't a big deal. They never got more than one shot at a time. We vaccinated on schedule. Those children are now 22, 20 & 18. These babies now at almost 4 and 2 won't follow that path.

 

My son will still have completed all of his shots by 5, he just didn't get 2-7 in a single day. He is up to date at the moment. One shot every 3 months starting after he was 6 months old and I made my decision.

[BikeBookBread]

Yep, all as recommended by the girls' doctors, and on schedule. We believe the benefits far outweigh the risks. However, we didn't do it blindly.

 

As a side note, my Aunt had polio - I saw firsthand the effects of that particular disease.

 

And to, OP, Asta is not bringing a fight AT ALL. This has just been a VERY contentious topic. Lots of banning, deleting, etc... It's a VERY emotional topic to quite a few people on these boards.

[FaithManor]

Yes, but on a delayed schedule and not all vaccines. We never allowed shots closer than 6 months and never more than two at a time.

 

We did not do hepatitis and will not allow any vaccine that has been on the market less than 8 years - we want to see the long term research - that's just us. DD is not getting Gardisil.

 

We also did not allow MMR until age 5. Pediatrician didn't like it - we didn't care about his opinion - our boys were late talkers but very verbose once they began. We weren't going to risk it. We also demanded dead virus polio when oral polio was still the norm.

 

Additionally, we had a two year span in which none of the children received vaccines because grandpa was dying of cancer and going through cancer treatments which made him very succeptible.

 

So, yes to vaccines but not all of them.

Faith

[Lolly]

Started off blinding following the doctor's orders. Dd ran into some allergy problems with one. (Same as myself, father, and grandmother.) Ds had some issues show up right after his. We no longer vaccinate, but the kids have had most of them. If they wish to have them after they are 18, that will be there business. But, it won't be done on my watch.

[Tree House Academy]

My older son has been fully vaccinated - inlcuding the Hep A vaccine they recommended at his last vist.

 

My younger son had a reaction to the MMR or Varicella (we aren't sure which, since he got them at the same time), so we have delayed the boosters on those. We also did not get the Hep. A for him last time, but will be getting it at his next well-check.

[Joanne]

Delayed and select. Only got them caught up when I opened daycare and didn't have the time (and lost the inclination) to fight the beaurocratic system.

[clarkacademy]

At one time yes I did. At this point no I won't I cannot say without a doubt what harmed my son. I suppose those answers will come when I meet my maker. I had my first child at 20 so kinda young I read all the books I followed the rules. My daughter had all her shots. She was perfect in every way. She read at 3 in preschool they said she could start 1st grade my second child a boy he was so beautiful. Blond hair blue eyes perfect. I took him to Olan Mills they said he was a model baby. I got him into modeling, he did pageants at 2 he was on national telivision in Mertle Beach crowned America's Most Beautiful. At that time he was making more money than his father. Shortly after he started acting weird. By his third birthday he was back in diapers had no verbal skills and he was not my little boy anymore. Within a year my son turned into a stranger. Take years later my 2nd son he had his first dose of MMR within 2 months his language skills started to fade and I knew it wasn't right. He never had the 2nd set after that we didn't do shots. He was in speech OT for years is my 2nd son normal? Pretty much after therapies for years on end and many issues. My first son has autism we have come a long way (that is another story) he has a heart defect now and seizures. My last child no shots she is perfectly happy healthy and whole. Again it could all be genetics it could be something else I cannot make your choices but for us I will never hold another child down to have anything injected into their veins. All of my children were considered advanced until shortly around their 2nd bdays. Then the boys changed. I don't know what happened but with all I have read and researched holding them down to have shots put in their leg, well it haunts me in a major way. It detroyed our family and now I am single mommy to 4. Like I said I will never know what happened but the timing is awfully funny. We don't do shots and probally never will and if others wanna think my kids pose a health risk then so be it. I could care less. Noone knows what it is like until you live it. Autism is no fun, having your children turn into strangers is heart breaking. I lost my first son and almost my 2nd and until someone can prove to me without a doubt I will blame the vaccines. I don't trust the goverment to educate them so why should i trust it with their health.

[Laura Corin]

Yes: the boys are fully vaccinated, plus some extra due to living overseas - rabies, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid, TB, etc. I am convinced by the medical arguments.

 

Laura

[Jumping In Puddles]

My children are fully vaxed. After much research and thought, I decided the benefits outweigh the risks.

[Nakia]

My children are mostly vaccinated.

[justamouse]

Selectively, on my own timetable and with no doubling up.

[simka2]

I recently had to take a refresher course on vaccines, how they are made, the statistics involved, herd immunity things like that. I have also swung back and forth between both camps.

 

I have jad the wonderful oppertunity to sit under proffessors of both camps as well...from Naturalpath MD...to some pretty staunch Microbiologists.

 

My personal conclusion is slow and steady for all, but the flu vaccine (we do not get it) unless your immunocompromised and then I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

 

There are some great peer reviewed studies being done/ done one the link between geographic location and autism. Lending itself to the conclusion (KEY WORD "LENDING") that instead of being linked to the filler ingredients in vaccines there's a strong link to an enviromental contament. Sorry, I don't have the link it was something we studied last semester in Micro.

 

But for us...yes we get them...try to space them...but we also travel internationally and for those cases it is a must in my eyes. We also have to consider the increase in international travel and how this does bring us into closer contact to diseases we no longer carry immunity to, but are not completely irradicated.

[Murmer]

Legally I was required to vaccinate both of my children until they where finalized. But I also probably would vaccinate anyway, but we did separate the vaccines with ds so that he only got 1 or 2 a month...it meant more visits to the nurse but I was able to watch fir reactions...he did react to his last dtap with a fever so I am in the process of deciding if we are going to do it again.

[joannqn]

No vaccines here. We feel that the risks outweigh the benefits, especially given that there is seizure history on both sides of the family, including immediate family. That increases the risk of vaccine-induced seizure. We also have food allergies, environmental allergies, and medicine allergies in our family which we feel increases the risk.

 

We looked at the worst case scenario for both sides. Our kids could die from a reaction to the vaccine and our kids could die from a disease. In a worst case scenario, we'd rather they die from a naturally occurring disease than from an injection we authorized.

[jujsky]

I did because that's what you're "supposed to do." When my kids were babies I really didn't give it a second thought. Now that I'm more educated about it, I've opted for a delayed vaccination schedule. If I ever have another child there will be certain vaccines that baby wouldn't receive, and the rest would be given on a delayed schedule. I'm not opposed to vaccines, but I do think too many are pumped into those tiny bodies at one time.

[NanceXToo]

Mine have had most of the "normal" vaccinations- however, with my youngest (now 4 1/2) I did have them spread them out a bit more instead of doing several shots per visit as the doctor's office was inclined to do.

 

I did not get the swine flu vaccine, I did not get any of them any sort of flu shots this year, and I turned down the gardisil one, too.

[KrissiK]

Well, since my children were wards of the state at that time, we had to have them vaccinated. If I were given a choice, I'm not sure what I would have done. Probably would have had then vaccinated anyhow.

[StartingOver]

At one time yes I did. At this point no I won't I cannot say without a doubt what harmed my son. I suppose those answers will come when I meet my maker. I had my first child at 20 so kinda young I read all the books I followed the rules. My daughter had all her shots. She was perfect in every way. She read at 3 in preschool they said she could start 1st grade my second child a boy he was so beautiful. Blond hair blue eyes perfect. I took him to Olan Mills they said he was a model baby. I got him into modeling, he did pageants at 2 he was on national telivision in Mertle Beach crowned America's Most Beautiful. At that time he was making more money than his father. Shortly after he started acting weird. By his third birthday he was back in diapers had no verbal skills and he was not my little boy anymore. Within a year my son turned into a stranger. Take years later my 2nd son he had his first dose of MMR within 2 months his language skills started to fade and I knew it wasn't right. He never had the 2nd set after that we didn't do shots. He was in speech OT for years is my 2nd son normal? Pretty much after therapies for years on end and many issues. My first son has autism we have come a long way (that is another story) he has a heart defect now and seizures. My last child no shots she is perfectly happy healthy and whole. Again it could all be genetics it could be something else I cannot make your choices but for us I will never hold another child down to have anything injected into their veins. All of my children were considered advanced until shortly around their 2nd bdays. Then the boys changed. I don't know what happened but with all I have read and researched holding them down to have shots put in their leg, well it haunts me in a major way. It detroyed our family and now I am single mommy to 4. Like I said I will never know what happened but the timing is awfully funny. We don't do shots and probally never will and if others wanna think my kids pose a health risk then so be it. I could care less. Noone knows what it is like until you live it. Autism is no fun, having your children turn into strangers is heart breaking. I lost my first son and almost my 2nd and until someone can prove to me without a doubt I will blame the vaccines. I don't trust the goverment to educate them so why should i trust it with their health.

 

:grouphug: :grouphug: I understand your position. I have a friend with 2 autistic sons who were vaccinated. She believes the connection is the MMR or the combination of vaccines they had that day. She has two sons never vaccinated, and no autism.

[Gooblink]

We did, do and will. :)

 

We don't do flu vaccines, with the exception of my 10 year-old who has Type-1 diabetes and the doctor strongly suggests we have him vaccinated.

 

As far as I know, none of us has ever had the flu.

[TammyinTN]

DH is in the military and we travel all over the world. We vaccinated so they would be protected.

[Desert Rat]

Yes, my kids are vaccinated. My dad had polio as a child and this largely shaped my decision. Watching him suffer from the effects is heart wrenching.

[JenneinCA]

My kids have been vaccinated. I feel the benefits are greater than the risks, especially since we hang out with people who choose not to vaccinate.

 

We do not do the flu vaccines because I don't want to be in a doctor office in October and we didn't do the swine flu vaccine because we caught swine flu before it was available in our area.

[Wheres Toto]

I vaccinate except for flu vaccines and Guardisil, which I want more of a track-record for first.

 

DH and I both have worked for pharmaceutical companies, he is a pharmaceutical chemist. We have done extensive research into vaccinations and feel that they are the best option for our family.

[mommaduck]

We did at first. I was being a "good mommy" and doing everything that I had been told was best for my child, from breastfeeding, to cloth diapers, to insisting on circumcising, to getting all his shots.

 

Then we had our daughter. She nearly died from a vaccination. We were told to research the issue and to consider either selectively vaccinating or not vaccinating at all...and that we should do the same with any future siblings as we did with our daughter.

 

We chose to selectively/not vaccinate (some of them had the initial hep in the hospital...the last two were born at home. One had a Vit K shot only due to a homebirth issue.)

 

 

I have informed my children that there are certain circumstances where they may feel the need to selectively vaccinate as an adult and that I am aware that they may simply choose to wholly disagree with me as an adult. They may then do as they darn well please as an adult. Until then, I'm responsible for their health and the risks vs benefits for OUR family, our genetics, and our particular life circumstances weigh out as such that the risks are not worth the so-called benefits.

Edited May 7, 2010 by mommaduck

[Pamela H in Texas]

I can't very well answer that. LOL

 

My dd was fully vaccinated as a young child. My son had delayed vaccinations for health reasons. A little later, I had some conscious issues with certain vaccinations based on how they were made. And I allow teens to decide for themselves.

 

IF I had another child, which is very unlikely, they would have delayed vaccinations spread out and certain ones would not be taken.

[prairiegirl]

My kids are vaccinated but selectively. We did get the swine flu vaccine, though, and that was a torturous decision for me to make. The only reason we got it, though, was that I had been diagnosed with cancer two months before the vaccines came out. I decided that this family had been through enough drama due to sickness and we couldn't handle anymore major sickness. If I hadn't had the cancer, I would not have gotten the vaccine.

[MomtoCandJ]

DD has all of her vaccinations I think, at one point there was a shortage on one and because she was low risk for getting the disease they decided to have her wait, not sure if she got it yet or not. Not sure about the gardisil one yet but I have a few years to think about it. She has had the swine flu vaccine but not regular flu and probably won't get it either. The only reason she got the swine flu one is because I work at a gas station and she used to go to work with me for about an hour and I didn't want her to get that sick because people don't know how to stay home when they themselves are sick.

[3peasinapod]

We did, and I did extensive (at least in my own eyes) research. I simply felt that the benefits outweighed the risks. More people have died from the actual diseases trying to be prevented than the vaccination in my research.

[TravelingChris]

We get vaccines except for Gardisil. We do get flu vaccines. I am a triple risk person, and one dd and dh are single risk people. THat means we should all get it to protect me and them. I have studied the vaccine issue a lot and have found that there is no scientific evidence for a link between vaccines and autism so I never had that consideration in mind.

[kmacnchs]

We have gotten all vaccinations up to this point (mine are 3, 2, & 1). My dh is a pediatric nurse so there was no discussion even though I think people have valid points about getting so many vaccinations at once.

[misidawnrn]

My 19yo is fully vaxxed (I was young and just did what the ped told me)

My 6yo is vaxxed up to age 2 and then nothing since

My 1yo hasn't been vaxxed against anything.

 

I came to this decision for a couple of reasons...I did my research and decided the risks and side effects of the vax out weigh the complications caused by the disease (Read Dr Sears vaccine book. It is neither for or against vax but tells you the risks of getting the vax and the risks of the disease)

I took care of a young girl earlier in my nursing carreer that was fully fine, growing, thriving until age 1 and she got a vax (can't remember which) and now she is a total vegetable.

The research I have read that states the child's brain isn't fully formed until between 2-5 and that some vaxs can interfere with that growth/formation was enough for me to rethink it. To think that I might lower my child's potential learning, immunity, fertility etc by injecting them with something scares me.

 

I am a nurse in L&D/OB and if my patients want their baby vaxxed against Hep B, I do it. It is not my child or my decision. If they want my advice on whether to do it or not, I tell them to research their options. If they ask me if I vax, I tell them the truth and tell them to research their options.

Good luck in your research. What is good for one family might not be good for another but thankfully we can still choose what is right for us.

[Mommyof4ks]

We vaccinate but we are now on a delayed schedule. We are around many kids who are not vaccinated, so I will not take that risk. Gardisil is one we will skip for now and I will not give my 5 yr old the chicken pox vax again (he will need to be revaxed after cancer treatment). We did not get the SF vax either because the disease had already gone through our area before the vax was available.

[ScoutTN]

We did all the AAP recommended vaccines in order for DD because I didn't know there was any other way to do it.

 

When DS had some significant reactions to his 8 wk shots (fever and screaming for three days straight), I got worried and started reading. We found Bob Sears' The Vaccine Book to be the most balanced and helpful source of info and are doing his full vax at a slower pace schedule for DS.

 

We have skipped chx pox vax and all flu including H1N1.

[EKS]

All vaccinations on schedule here, including some extras.

[creekland]

I did have my kids vaccinated because I thought the benefits outweighed the risks.

 

:iagree:

 

Ours got everything except chicken pox. We skipped that one because they'd already had the pox themselves. To me, the diseases are far worse than the risk of the shots (other than chicken pox). We didn't have any problems either. We keep the vaccs updated too - esp tetanus.

 

Edited to add that we don't do the flu shots of any sort. In that case I consider the flu to be the better thing to have, if you get it, to have a stronger immunity. My thoughts would change if any of my kids (or adults) had a weakened immune system.

[ohmel]

No vaccines. We have had serious side effects from usually benign medications so we avoid most medicinal treatments in general.

[tabrizia]

We do a delayed selective schedule. DS is up to date at 3, except for Hep B and Hep A, he'll probably get those before we go to India next time. We don't do rotovirus and chicken pox. DD will be up to date at 3 as well to the same degree DS is. I do not do more then 2 single shots at a visit, or 1 combo shot, and I won't do any of the massive combo shots. I also keep an eye on the suggested shots, sometime if they are older they only need 1 shot vs a series of 3 or 4, or only 3 shots vs 4. I also don't let them get any shots till 4 months and when we have a third, I am thinking about delaying till 6 months before they get their first shot.

[Firefly]

We started out vax-ing as scheduled because that's just what my pediatrician said to do and back then it never occurred to me to question a doctor. :glare: But the more I researched it on my own the more I decided we would vaccinate selectively, so that's what we do.

[Orthodox6]

In that my eldest is 23-1/2, there was no information available to "Jane Q. Parent" to know that there was (is) a choice. So all of my children have received the gamut of required vaccines, with one exception. Now that we know about the individual vaccines derived from killed children, dh and I have refused the varicella vaccine. Had we possessed information earlier, we would have refused selected other vaccines, as well. Refusing Garadasil is automatic, but for other reasons.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Orthodox6

[Naturalmama2]

We selectively vaccinate. My first child has all vaccines except MMR and 2nd dose of chickenpox. My youngest pretty much has only polio and TDaP. I read a lot of books, both pro and against vaccines before we came to our decision.

[msjones]

My kids had all the routine childhood vaccinations.

 

I've seen people suffering through whooping cough and also the long-term effects of polio. I believe the benefits of vaccinating outweigh the risks.

[Dawn in OH]

I vaccinated when my children were babies because I didn't know any better. It was something that you just did......no one had informed me that I could do any differently. I didn't even really think about it.

 

But then I began reading, researching, et and I decided to stop vaxing my kids.

 

For us, for now, I feel comfortable with no further vaccinations at the moment.

 

I'm stealing part of your reply, because it applies and I was feeling to lazy to type it out.

[Mommy22alyns]

We made an informed decision to vaccinate our girls 100% and on time. We no longer do flu shots though; I don't think they're necessary for us.

 

 

OP, I know you said no debate, but I can't stand the "we vaxed because we didn't know any better" attitude. It implies that people who vax did not make an informed decision, which is NOT always true.