During our last meeting, our midwife said something striking: “The decisions you make about your child can haunt you for the rest of your life. It’s best if you know all the sides of the issue before making them.” She also said “trust your intuition.” We were talking about SIDS and about vaccinations (another sticky subject was also on my mind but I didn’t bring it up).
There is anecdotal, but not clinical, evidence that MMR (mums, measels and rubella) vaccine causes autism. Doctors say MMR is perfectly safe, while some moms report their children getting sick after getting it and then being diagnosed within autism spectrum or ADHD. In addition, there is a school of thought saying that antibodies introduced into the body through administration of a given vaccine don’t exactly reproduce the full cellular immunity that a body develops when it fights off the disease by itself. And there is a bunch of other stuff I don’t know anything about (and we know that little knowledge is dangerous).
Through haze, I remember being sick with some of those disease as a kid. I was out of school for a while and had red, pussy dots all over me. Parents made soups and cuddled me. I lied in a darkened living room and read a lot. I do not remember any pain (though, I’m sure there was some), just the feelings of love, care and freedom from school. It is a pleasant memory.
Am I being ridiculously idyllic about something dangerous? What’s at stake isn’t just our personal health, there are public as well as legal repercussions to consider.
The medical practice we are considering for the kid is “pro-vaccines” but they have a less aggressive immunization schedule than most other practices. This is supposed to make us feel better. We attended an information session and it turns out the kid would need to be vaccinated for 12 different diseases for a total of 30 pokes by the time he’s 11. More than half of these pokes will happen in his first year of life (17). Each of the diseases/vaccines has its own special quirks, so, I guess, we have to read up on them individually. There are few books on the subject on reserve at the library and we are going to an “anti-vaccines” information session next week.
I am of a heavy, heavy heart about this whole thing. Chris promised to read some books, though he did sigh and wished I was into architecture or Mayan ruins.