We
have vaccinated both girls and stuck to the timeline in which those
vaccinations are recommended. This is
another subject I didn’t really do much research on because it was a simple
decision for us. The thought of our
girls getting a disease (that was offered in vaccinations) would be too much to
bear as parents. Hadleigh never had any
side effects other than being tired after, so there was no urgency to hold off
on any. Now, there were times when I
would come across the autistic studies in correlation to vaccinations, and I
would immediately worry. For us, the
pros to vaccinating out-weighed that. As
parents, you have to make the decisions that are right for your family.
To
be honest, either way you look at it, there’s a risk involved. If the girls got one of the diseases and we
didn’t vaccinate we would feel guilty.
Or if the girls ended up being autistic, we would question whether it
was any of the vaccinations they received.
As parents, we take comfort in knowing (hoping really) we made the right
choice and that chances were slim that those things would occur.
On
the flip side, we choose not to vaccinate for the flu. We treat this vaccination a little different
than the others. From experience,
anytime we received the flu shot, we would get the flu. The times we weren’t vaccinated, we slid by
the flu season untouched. Could be coincidence
for sure, but we also know that they try and guess the strains that will break
out that year. A lot of times, there’s a
new strain that hits and wasn’t included in the flu shot.
I
think the decision is definitely based on the individual. We are all out to make the best decision for
our kids and I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here. What are your reasons for vaccinating or not
vaccinating? Do you have a mix of the
two choices as well?
