May 27th, 2014 – 2 month checkup, time to vaccinate!

The time has come for our little Monkey to see his pediatrician for his 2 month checkup.  This checkup is difficult for new reasons.  It is time for Monkey to start his vaccinations.  You might be tempted to think that being married to a pediatrician I just unquestioningly go with what Doc says when it comes to the healthcare of our son.  You would be wrong though.  I ask a ton of questions.  I ask to read the research myself.  I question not only my husband but every pediatrician about the options available.  I am not an uninformed consumer going with the flow.  Anyone familiar with my Facebook feed can tell you I am an outspoken advocate for children’s health care.  It matters to me that I put current information out there for my friends that don’t have access to as many doctors to badger with their questions.  I even connect them with doctors and sources so that they can get the information first hand.  And in the end here is what I concluded was the best treatment option for our son; to be vaccinated on the currently recommended schedule. 

I am not excited about watching my son get 3 shots this week.  I will not love watching the nurse hold my 2 month old down and jab him 3 times while I listen to him scream out.  I will feel as if I utterly betrayed him when I allow this to happen.  But I have to own those feelings and get comfortable with them, because they are not in my son’s best interest.  Without those shots I am putting both his quality of life and actual life up for grabs to the nearest virus.  With each shot I reduce the chances that I will have to watch them stick needles in his back, watch them shove tubes down his throat to help him breath, watch him suffer needless torment because I was unable to manage my own anxiety about getting his shots.  For 5 minutes of anxiety and discomfort I could save my son’s life or the life of someone he comes in contact with. 

There is a lot of misinformation out there about vaccines being spread about by an anti-vaccine movement that has no author other than celebrities.  I haven’t read anything by a board certified physician that supports the anti-vaccine movement.  I have read many of their claims and when I spent the time to investigate further I found they had almost no merit and generally twisted facts to make vaccines sound more dangerous than they are.  Vaccines are incredibly well studied.  Every vaccine side effect must be reported by the witnessing physician, and then reported by the CDC to the public.  There is no conspiracy to keep side effects quiet.  If the risk were as great as these terrorists allege every doctor I know would have unvaccinated children, because they would be the front line for seeing the side effects.  Every physician I know vaccinates and does it on the standard schedule. 

One of the reasons I choose to vaccinate on the standard schedule is that it is the way vaccines are studied.  Children are vaccinated on a schedule that has been found to be most effective at reducing risk of both vaccination side effects and prevention of the diseases.  I don’t want to mess with vaccine efficacy.  There isn’t as much research available for the alternative schedules.  I know that the majority of pediatricians will say the alternative schedule is better than no vaccines, but I don’t have the research to back it up.  There has been no evidence to support the claim that vaccines can overwhelm the immune system of the child.  Healthy children shouldn’t have any difficulty with getting vaccines on the regular schedule. 

My other reasons for vaccinating on the recommended schedule are more practical.  First, I don’t want to have to keep track of the vaccines.  Parents who vaccinate on the alternative schedule are in charge of making sure their children are actually getting all of their vaccines.  It is ridiculous to expect that a doctor can remember 200 different vaccine schedules, so the burden falls to the parent.  I don’t want it.  Second, I want fewer visits to the doctor’s office.  I love our pediatrician, he is a good friend.  I love the office, my husband works there.  However, the pediatrician’s office is a great place to get sick.  The less time we spend there the better.  Not to mention that each visits disrupts our daily schedule.  I also want my son to have fewer negative associations with the pediatrician’s office.  The fewer painful visits the better.  Basic psychology at play there. 

Now I just have to mentally prepare myself for this visit as well as for the things that come after the visit.  I can expect my son to have his first fever this week.  Fever is a very common reaction to vaccinations and a recent study found that treating the post vaccine fever with Tylenol actually reduced the effectiveness of the vaccines, so I will have to just cope and hopefully teach my son how to cope in the process.  Fevers are so scary for parents.  I get that.  However, after years of listening to pediatricians I have come to have a slightly different view of fevers.  They are not dangerous.  I don’t know where we got this fear of fevers or these thoughts that they will bake your brain.  They won’t.  Even really high fevers are safe.  Febrile seizures are even safe, because they are not true seizures and do not cause the damage usually associated with seizures.  These things are terrifying to us as parents, but I am going to have to remind myself they are not dangerous.  And when I am unable to manage my fears I will rely on my pediatrician to remind me that fevers are actually a sign of a healthy immune system.  We are relying on that healthy immune response to help my son produce the antibodies necessary to have made these shots worth it. 

I realize that there are those individuals who are unable (for a variety of valid reasons) to be vaccinated.  Mostly we are talking about the very young, those who are already sick, and in extremely rare cases those who have an allergy to a particular vaccine component.  Individuals who are suffering from a serious illness, such as cancer, may be unable to get their vaccinations because their immune system is busy with a much bigger battle.  Chemotherapy drugs and drug treatments for organ transplants reduce the body’s natural immune system.  Because these individuals do not have the normal immune responses in place they are unable to fight off infections and produce the antibodies necessary to protect them.  We protect them with herd immunity, which is why getting our vaccines and getting Monkey vaccinated is so important. 

It is also important to understand that vaccinations are a preventative measure.  Once a child is sick it is too late to offer them the protection afforded us by vaccinations.  One of the saddest stories I have heard to date is that of an unvaccinated child who was in the hospital being treated for cancer.  The lack of protective antibodies combined with the treatments for cancer made the child susceptible to every disease and illness that walked into the hospital.  Unfortunately the child contracted several all at once and the suffering was intense and long lived.  I cannot imagine that the parents ever imagined that would be the consequence of their choice.