Trusting Tuesday: Immunizations

This post isn't about if you should or shouldn't vaccinate your baby.

This post is to encourage you to become educated about vaccines so that you can trust your own decision to vaccinate or not vaccinate your children.

There are many vaccines available for ourselves and our children. These vaccines have been developed to help prevent the spread of some potentially very scary diseases. Every parent has a choice to vaccinate their children or not, but the majority of school systems require children to be vaccinated or sign a waiver in order to attend school. Obviously if you child doesn't go to a public school where vaccines are required, then you have the option to home school your children if they aren't vaccinated.

Here is a list of current vaccines: and the signs and symptoms of the diseases

Chickenpox: Rash, tiredness, headache, fever

Diptheria: sore throat, mild fever, weakness, swollen glands in neck

Hib: may be no symptoms unless bacteria enter the blood

Hep A: fever, stomach pain, loss of appetite, fatigue, vomiting, jaundice, dark urine

Hep B: fever, headache, weakness, vomiting, jaundice, joint pain

Flu: fever, muscle pain, sore throat, cough, fatigue

Measles: Rash, fever, cough, runny nose, pink eye

Mumps: Swollen glands, fever, headache, tiredness, muscle pain

Pertussis: Severe cough, runny nose, fever

Polio: Sore throat, fever, nausea, headache, or no symptoms

Pneumococcal: pneumonia

Rotavirus: diarrhea, fever, vomiting

Rubella: rash, fever, and swollen lymph nodes

Tetanus: stiffness in neck and abdominal muscles, difficulty swallowing, muscle spasms, fever

Resource for this post were from the CDC website. Found HERE

IF any of these diseases end up with a complication they can lead to things like liver failure, paralysis, meningitis, broken bones, swelling of the brain or heart, and even death.

How often does this happen? I don't know. I do know it is rare, I do know that a lot of people don't get these diseases anymore because of vaccines... but what harm comes from the vaccines themselves? I have no idea. Does every child tolerate vaccines the same way?

Nope- they don't- Do I have scientific proof? Nope. But my first daughter took every vaccine like a champ and the second one I had to change her vaccine schedule because she got so sick every time she had vaccines.

Interested in alternative vaccine schedules? Stay tuned for next week's post.