I always find it strange that when talking about vaccinations people usually fall on one of two sides. Pro vaccination and do as the CDC recommends or they are anti vaccinations. I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of both sides or into to much scientific studies for either side. But I wanted to share that there is a third option and a few reason why we choose it. We use an alternate vaccination schedule. I will tell you that my husband and I did a lot of research on the matter before our son was born and both separately found out about this option. Brought it to each other and were both inboard with the idea instantly. We continued researching until we found the information and schedule were decided on.
I would encourage parents to do thorough research before just going along with anything that is regulated and administered to your child. We are so careful to make sure we don't put anything into our bodies that can affect the baby while we are pregnant so why stop once they are born? A big thing I want to point out is that when we were children the amount of required vaccinations was around half of what is now included on the CDC vaccination schedule...Something to think about... Since I believe kids had less illness and problems "back in our day".
So I will give up some reasons that convinced us to go with an alternate schedule. There are many reasons we choose to do this but I'm only going to point out a few.
1 - Sometimes children can have a severe reaction to a vaccine and while on the CDC schedule sometimes four shots are given at once. Therefore if your child has a reaction you will have no idea which one they reacted to. With one ore two at a time this is much easier to asses. Will gets one shot per leg so we can better monitor him.
2- Pumping a large amount of live virus into a child can have harmful effects. I'm not going to go into this further because people get way to up in arms on what they believe. But the research is out there if you look for it so you can decide for yourself.
3 - We haven't allowed any Hepatitis A or B shots to be given. Or MMR for the same reason. MMR is know to be the hardest on the body and have the worst effects. There tiny bodies have a hard time with these. In our opinion the Hep A & B shots aren't needed yet. For the simple reason that these are transmitted through sex and drug use and well our son is involved in neither, rightfully so. And in case one might believe he could contract it some other strange way. He isn't going to an impoverished 3rd world country anytime soon and He isn't in daycare either where somehow someones blood will be ingested.
So to easy everyone's mind the alternate schedule we use will have William fully vaccinated before he starts school the main difference is that the shots are spread out and some are not administered until he is past an age where the dangers of live vaccines are at their most harmful.
Here is a link to the schedule we use this
Vaccination Schedule (Note: We use the top schedule)
There are several options out there this is just the one we follow and liked above others. I have yet to have a Doctor, or here of one, that has the ability to split up the MMR into separate Measles, Mumps, and Rubella shots. So we are going to wait on that until William is 5.
I don't expect all to agree with our choice, but I wanted to shed some light on an option that some might not be aware of. I also want to add that the two pediatricians that we have had and in different states are very supportive of our schedule. Both actually told me that they would probably do the same for their own children if they where the age mine is now.
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