Why I get to find out what our pediatrician's really made of

I'll be bringing up the topic of a delayed vaccination schedule with him tomorrow at Waylon's four-month visit. Honestly, this is something I never thought I'd do. When Delaney was born I a.) wasn't very educated about vaccines and b.) wasn't very concerned about any adverse effects from them. And when Waylon was born I wasn't worried about the shots either. Vaccines never bothered Delaney one little bit. The kid never even got a fever. I just assumed Way would handle it all well too. But when he had a fever of 103 for 48 hours and wouldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time for four days straight after getting his two-month vacs I started to get nervous. Add to that the fact that we could (possibly but hopefully not probably) have risk factors for autism: 1 in 88 boys get autism; a father's advanced age may make a child more susceptible to autism (Roger's 54); Way has had more digestive issues (albeit minor ones) than his sister ever did as a newborn; and I became downright concerned about vaccinating. So I did what any self-respecting, 21st century, uninformed-about-vaccines mother would do. I ordered a book from Amazon.

I chose Dr. Sears', The Vaccine Book, because the reviews I'd read of it labeled it as middle-of-the-road--neither pro-  nor anti-vaccine--and I really wanted as unbiased an opinion as I could get. It's a great book and if you have any questions or concerns about vaccinating I highly recommend it. While the vaccine debate is daunting (to un-scientific me, at least), Sears carefully spelled everything out for me and it was a quick but enlightening read. Going into this I never though of myself as "anti-vaccine." But I did have reservations about the side effects of vaccines as well as concerns about what chemicals and additives they might contain. Sears details each AAP recommend vac, the disease it works to prevent and the way in which the vac is produced (including lists of ingredients). After reading the book I'm still in favor of vaccines but Sears did make me a believer in an alternative vaccination schedule that, while still including each and every AAP recommended vaccine, spreads out the delivery so that children get no more than two vacs at each visit.

Our pediatrician's an older guy (probably Roger's age - ha!) and he's pretty old school. We like him because he's straight-forward, no nonsense and he listens to our my concerns (Roger doesn't have concerns - ahhhh, what life must be like to live worry-free!). Tomorrow I'll be bringing my dogeared, highlighted, and annotated copy of Sears' book to discuss with him my quest to get our son onto an alternative vaccination schedule that doesn't include combination shots. His nurse practitioner assures me that he's more liberal on the vaccine debate than the other doctors in the practice but that may be like saying Rush Limbaugh is more liberal than Ann Coulter. I'm a little nervous but when I remember that I'm doing this because my mother gut tells me to, I know I'm doing the right thing. Wish me luck!

Comments

[mamasutra]

Good luck on your visit tomorrow. We went through some...interesting discussions with the nurses who do the immunizations here. They really did not like to change the schedule, but they did. One handed me a gigantic document about the perils of getting your info from the internet, because she assumed that my decision to do things differently came from some freaky website. Hated to tell her that I actually read some books, written by doctors and researchers: go figure.

[pcosMama]

Good luck! My daughter never had issues and my son hasn't had any major reactions, but he does get very cranky and tired. Yesterday, 4 days after his 4 month shots, he spent several hours throughout the day (at least 4 different times on and off for a half hour or more) screaming and screeching as if he was in a lot of pain. I wondered if it could be related. If you read anything about that, could you please let me know?

[midlife mommy]

I've heard about that book before. Now, I'm going to put it on my wish list (in case I'm lucky enough to need it). Thanks!