First things first, before any daggers get thrown lets be clear - this post is about why I won't be vaccinating my NEWBORN. The Hubs and I agree that vaccinations are important, just not important enough to be filling our newborn's tiny and unprepared body with right away. The following post will contain both my opinion and FACTS because you all know how much I love facts. Everyone has the right to make their own decision and I stand by ours knowing that we were educated about the subject matter first. Hopefully you learn something new, re-educate yourself on the subject of vaccines in babies, or know that there are other people out there that share your same beliefs. Now on to the good stuff!
When it came to learning about vaccinations, I knew I wanted to get as much info as possible. It's a tough subject for parents and people not only have a lot of opinions but those opinions are STRONG. For me though, it's about making sure that what I'm putting into my baby's body is not only something that their body can handle but it's something that's really necessary. I've lived a vegan lifestyle for almost 6 years and I honestly believe that's what has helped with me having almost zero issues or "side effects" in my pregnancy. How can I live and promote that lifestyle and not have the same mentality when it came to my newborn?! So I've questioned a lot of things along the way and I've learned a lot of things as well.
First of all, we can all agree that vaccines are big business. To be specific, it's a 61 billion dollar a year business. These vaccines are not only made but also promoted by big pharmaceutical companies. With such a high profit margin, we can safely say that the health of your Little One is not their number one priority. In fact, have you ever looked into what is actually in vaccines? It's not hard to find. The CDC has them listed on their website and let me tell you - it's scary!!! Let's just take the Hep B vaccine which is given at birth - ingredients include formaldehyde, sulfates, and aluminum. Those are going right into your baby's bloodstream. I don't know about you but I wouldn't want any of those in MY body! But those ingredients are cheap and easily available. These types of ingredients aren't contained to just the Hep B vaccine - they're in most other vaccines. Aluminum is used in most vaccines as an adjuvant - something that is used to agitate the cell so the vaccine can work. There are arguments that we ingest aluminum anyways however the problem with that argument is we're not having babies ingest vaccines where the liver can help pull out toxins; we're shooting them directly into the bloodstream.
A common misconception is that some vaccines are good forever and that's just not the case. Take Varicella (Chicken Pox) for example - this vaccine is given starting at 12 months, however it only lasts about 7-10 years and isn't even 100% effective. This can cause some issues for your child later in life when they might be more likely to be exposed to chicken pox due to traveling or different environmental exposure. In children 1-15 years of age, complications are pretty rare but after 15, the mortality rate for Chicken Pox in adults is 25x higher. It's also incredibly hard to predict just how long vaccines work because they haven't been around long enough to proper studies. There is also a huge lack of info on vaccines in newborns under 6 months because what parent is going to offer up their newborn for studies?
I also feel really weird about vaccinating my child with something that is not likely to effect them at birth. Let's talk Hep B again - it's a sexually or via blood transmitted disease. Since I don't have Hep B - which increases the risk of my baby getting it during birth - how the hell is my newborn going to get this disease? And if my newborn does, then we have bigger issues than pushing vaccinations. Right now, the US has the highest vaccinations rates with the highest mortality rates in children under 5. That's scary considering most people have access to information, medical care, and clean water, yet we're pumping our newborns full of chemicals that can have radical side effects.
I'll say it again - I'm not against vaccinations BUT I am against introducing them to a tiny young system that might not actually benefit from them. Vaccinations have become this herd mentality and are now even dictated by school systems. Rarely parents actually do the research and instead blindly follow whatever everyone else is doing. I've done the research, I've talked to doctors, and in the end, I'm just not ok with putting vaccines inside my Baby's body earlier than 6 months. In an effort to not write a book, I'll be talking tomorrow about what you can do if you're having second thoughts about vaccinating your child at birth but still want to protect them. Stay Tuned!
Do you have any reservations about vaccinating your child so young? How did you partner, midwife, pediatrician feel about that?!