I'm making my way through my massive to-do-before-baby-arrives list. It's things like get my car detailed and clean the base boards. Things that aren't crucial, but seem critical to my preggo brain at the moment. Today was getting Sophie back to her old vet, checked out, and updated on shots. I love her vet. Plug for Caring Hands Animal Hospital in Urbana. Her nurse was also pregnant and due just 5 days after me, so we just jabbered away about baby stuff for long after the appointment was over. And come to find out my vet's kids go to Robeson. Small world.
She was due for 2 shots. It's hard to watch my fur-baby get jabbed. How am I going to make it through watching my little man get them in not too many months here. So, blogger world, do you have any good resources on delayed vaccinations and making a plan? I know people fall all over the spectrum when it comes to this issue, so I just want some good resources to start deciding what we'll do. Thanks ladies!
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Ethan just got 2 shots last week and didn't even cry! What a trooper. We roughly followed the recommended schedule. I did quite a bit of research, since I wasn't sure how Mexico's requirements compare to the US. We decided no to flu shots, but we've gotten him everything else. Some shots we got a few months late. It didn't seem to bother him either way.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend the book "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Sears. (This is the Dr. Sears that's the son of Dr. William Sears who's written tons of books.. With a small grain of salt, I recommend all of the Sears books, especially "The Breastfeeding Book" and "The Baby Book".. The Baby Book was my first year go-to. Love it..)
ReplyDeleteIn "The Vaccine Book" Dr. Sears takes you through every current vaccine and gives you purpose, pros, and cons. He is not anti-vaccine by any means, but supports educated decisions. He provides the CDC vax schedule, his delayed schedule, and his selective schedule if you only want to get the 'most pertinent' vaccines.
While the real problem ingredient 10 years ago was thimerosal aka mercury, now it's aluminum because thimerosal has for the most part been taken out of shots. Dr. Sears' delayed schedule allows for only one shot with aluminum at a time, which I definitely think is worth it. The book has a great section that explains aluminum poisoning.
We are doing a modified version Dr. Sears delayed schedule with Auggie and I am very pleased with how things are going. I was pretty freaked out by all the vax info out there, but I was vaccinated as a kid and I think the concept of it is good. However kids nowadays get way more vax's than we did back in the day. That said, Dan and I didn't start Auggie until he was 4 months old and now that we're in Albuquerque our pediatrician is even more flexible than our ped back in Champaign. We won't start any of the major vax's like Hepatitis, MMR, or varicella until Auggie is due to start school, so 4-years-old-ish. And personally, I'd much rather that he gets chicken pox (varicella) naturally than the shot. No one knows when the shot wears off while the natural disease provides immunity for a lifetime.
Definitely skip the Hepatitis B at birth. You can contract Hep B in two ways: blood transfusion and sexual activity. Hopefully neither of which will apply to your little guy when he's a day old, let alone 4 years old. :)
I'd ask around for a good pediatrician that won't give you a hard time about doing a delayed schedule. We had Dr. Paulette See at Carle on Curtis and liked her, but I did feel some pressure like I was kind of idiotic for being scared of vaxs, but she went with whatever I wanted regardless.
Pray a lot too! Hope this helps, and sorry about the massive essay. Just something that I've done a lot of reading/thinking about.
I totally forgot.. I LOVE Caring Hands Animal Hospital and can't tell you how much we miss everyone there!!! They are the BEST and are completely irreplaceable.. (And I'm so curious to know which nurse is pregnant..! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Val about Sears' Vaccine book. Emily you can borrow it from me if you want. And I agree about skipping the hep B shot at birth. That shot can wait for years...like until your little man enters med school!
ReplyDeleteI also recommend finding a dr who won't pressure you to follow the CDC schedule. We took Avery to Dr. See as well but have since switched to another Ped due to some other issues I had with her. Talk to me about the Carle Peds, I've done some shopping around.
And finally, distraction works wonders. Ever since Avery could grasp things I would give her a plastic cup from the office to play with and it distracts her so much she doesn't even cry when she gets the shots. It's crazy.