Why do you vaccinate?

[eoconnel]

For those mamas who vaccinate why do you? Did you research before deciding to vaccinate?

We do vaccinate and we went into it having done tons of research and decided to vaccinate our children fully.
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[gerberadaisy]

Yes I did the research. We do extended vax and I reserve the right to vax selectively in the future.

We vax mainly because my fear of the diseases was greater than my fear of the consequences.

[Rabbit]

Originally Posted by gerberadaisy

We vax mainly because my fear of the diseases was greater than my fear of the consequences.

I would expect that to be most people's reason, on either side. We chose x because my fear of y consequences outweighed my feelings/the calculated risks of the side effects of chosing x. I think it really boils down to that in just about every medical decision.

We didn't stop vaxing until we started experiencing consequences that outweighed my fear of the disease.

[Amy]

We did our research and decided to vax as well. However, if we had seen/will see any negative effects we'll stop immediately.

[believer]

I did not research. I had never heard of the no vax movement when my kids were very young. I just had them vaccinated because that is what you were supposed to do. And I knew that the diseases that they protect us from were quite deadly before vaccinations were invented.

[Leslie_JnJs_mom]

My kids are. The diseases they vaccines protect them from scared me more then the side effects. My next one I will probably extend them out but I would defiantly get whooping cough and measles done asap. I have seen on the news they are having large outbreaks of that. I would also make sure my vaccines are current on pertussis. The risk of death with a newborn is just too much of a risk.

---------- Post added at 10:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:05 PM ----------

Originally Posted by believer

I did not research. I had never heard of the no vax movement when my kids were very young. I just had them vaccinated because that is what you were supposed to do. And I knew that the diseases that they protect us from were quite deadly before vaccinations were invented.

Yes I still remember my grandmother telling me stories of months of movie theaters and bowling alleys etc were shut down when polio came through. She told me our generation was so fortunate to not have to live with the fear of these terrible diseases now. The older generation that remembers what it was like before vaccinations saw first hand what those diseases can do.

[Rabbit]

Originally Posted by Leslie_JnJs_mom

I have seen on the news they are having large outbreaks of that.

The population of the US is estimated at 311,591,917. The number of measles cases over all of last year was just over 200. It's hard to call that "large." In contrast, the flu last year hit in a single week about 2,500.

[Leslie_JnJs_mom]

Now I never get a flu shot. I should since I do have and auto immune disorder and asthma but I never do. DD is past the age where I need to worry. I wasn't going to but her doctor warned me the 2nd leading cause of death in children under 2 was the flu. I got it for her. A few months later Harry Jack and I were too sick to get out of bed while Jessica only got a slight cough.

[3boysforme]

I did not research with my older two, and have only researched a tiny bit with the youngest.

Really.... it is very hard to find non-biased research on either side of this fence.

So with ds1 and ds2, I did it because that was just what you did. With ds3, I decided no vaccines until he was older and only started once Medicaid threatened to cause trouble. He was about 7 months. By that point he got put on a delayed/selective schedule.


And now? They go to daycare and public school, and I do not have the time nor energy to get exemptions. I know that may seem like a pee-poor excuse, but it is true for me at this time. I am very blessed that my children have not had adverse reactions to vaccines.

[TradCathMamma]

I think they are good from a public health perspective; I believe the evidence points to they do much more good than harm. I generally trust what is supported by evidence based medicine and peer-reviewed scientific literature. In the absence of holding a PhD in immunology, I think that is the most reasonable approach for me to take.

Does anyone against vaccinations think that it was not a good thing that smallpox was successfully eliminated?

Now, mind you, I opted out of hep B for couple day old babies and I have not done varicella and definitely won't do gardecil (sp?).

I do not like the fact that the trend is for more and more vaccines to be cultured using fetal cell lines of aborted infants and I would chose the alternatives if I could.
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[Domina]

We did a lot of research, and mainly we decided to vax fully because none of the anti-vax arguments convinced us.

The websites and resources we were directed to seemed largely anecdotal or otherwise unscientific, and...I don't know...we just kept saying "Is this it? Is this the whole reason people don't vax?"

I started a "why don't you vax?" thread here a while back and read everyone's responses. They were very intelligent, well-thought-out reasons. They just weren't enough for me.

Also, we believe in it from a social responsibility standpoint. Our child's health is the most important thing to us, but we also believe in the importance of herd immunity. The trend of non-vaxing is small enough right now that disease risks are relatively low. This won't be the case if more and more people stop vaxing.

[Leslie_JnJs_mom]

I believe it is Australia that has a area's that are largely not immunized. I have read three blog posts of mothers who's newborn died of pertussis. They were up to date as were their children. They tried to limit contact when pertussis would go through but their newborn still got it and died. Now I know 3 newborn deaths is small in the general population, but it is huge to the parents who's newborn died from a preventable disease.

[Rabbit]

The outbreak in Australia isn't due to not vaxing. Vax rates remain high. It's due to the disease mutating.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/nati...421-1xebe.html

The current outbreak in the US is affecting fully vaccinated children more than any other subgroup, and the NVIC attributes it fully to vaccine failure. The bacterium is a particular challenge.
http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-New...-Failures.aspx

The pertussis vax remains highly controversial, even among vaccine scientists. It's one of the most interesting vaccine histories to study. At one point, it was believed that pertussis had been completely eradicated in the US.

[Starfox]

Subbing because we have one fully vaxed, one half-way vaxed as we read more up on it, and one who has no vaxes. I think we want to select/delay, but the ingredients are so gross I am hesitant.

[believer]

If I recall, one thing that many doctors are trying to create a vaccine for is Malaria.