If you find yourself weighing the pros and cons of the flu vaccine vs. actually getting the flu, then this post is for you. Chances are you have already done a bit of research, but what is true versus sensationalized or fear-based information?

For all of you who followed me last year on Facebook, you may know that my ENTIRE family got the flu last Christmas. It was a good TWO weeks before we all were “flu-free.” But we still will not get the flu shot this year. Think we’re crazy?

Read on to see why we are perfectly sane. 😉

The MMR vaccine for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella is a HOT topic with lots of angles to explore. The vaccine itself is designed to prevent three distinct illnesses, but MEASLES tends to get most of the headlines and media attention, especially right now as outbreaks are making the headlines and legislation for government mandated vaccines comes down the pipe in many states.

Throughout my research on all three illnesses, there was a noticeable disconnect between the fearful and emergency-like undertones from the mainstream media and what I learned from reading actual primary resources (along with talking to mine and my husband’s grandparents who both went through these childhood illnesses with their children and as children themselves.)

Then there’s this video showing the Brady Bunch kids in the 60’s laughing and joking about having the measles in contrast to a current-day Law and Order SVU episode where they declare a measles state of emergency. It’s seriously baffling. Stop everything and watch it before you read on.

I originally discussed all three MMR diseases in this post but decided after writing such a lengthy amount about measles that I was going to break them into two with an additional post on the MMR alone. You can find the other parts of the MMR in the Mumps and Rubella portion in Part 8 and read the data, ingredients concerns, alternative vaccine schedules, and more about the possible autism link in my next post on the MMR.

I am so happy to get this list of Atlanta Vaccine Friendly Pediatricians out there to you guys!

Many of these suggestions came from the experiences and research of wonderful and dedicated naturally-minded moms in the Atlanta metro community. Through our connections over social media and local meetups, we have been able to share our experiences about which doctors are accepting of our precious kiddos’ unvaccinated or delayed vaccination status and respectful of our wishes to care for our children in the ways we believe is best.

If you are looking for vaccine friendly doctors in other states, please see Dr. Sears complete list of vaccine friendly doctors.

If you are looking for Atlanta area holistic physicians for adults, you can check out my post on Atlanta Holistic and Alternative Doctors and Doctors for Cancer (and overall wellness.)

Feel free to post your questions, suggestions, and experiences in the comment section for myself and other moms (and dads) who come along!

The rotavirus vaccine is a newish vaccine that jumped onto the CDC childhood vaccine schedule in 2006. It has some interesting quirks regarding its development, use, and history. Making a decision about rotavirus vaccine isn’t easy, but I think this post will help you get to a more confident place. Here we go. 🙂

The Pneumococcal (PcV) vaccine is the fifth vaccine in this series and was added to the CDC childhood vaccine schedule in 2000.

This is another one that I did not receive myself since it was not on the 1983 childhood vaccine schedule (see below.) As I researched whether to give this vaccine to my first daughter, there were definitely some convincing reasons to do so. And also many reasons to stay clear of it.

Let’s take a closer look.

Before the birth of our first child and prior to starting my research on vaccines, this is about how much I thought I knew about polio and the polio vaccine:

1. Polio was a really big problem before the vaccine.
2. Lots of people were paralyzed from polio before the vaccine and many died.
3. After the vaccine everyone was saved from polio! The end.

It’s not quite that simple though. And I think it’s so important for parents evaluating this vaccine to know the big picture around the rise of polio and all of the factors going on at the time just before and after its peak.

The process of writing this post about polio and the polio vaccine was incredibly intense. At times I just wanted to give up this entire series on vaccines because research on polio was difficult and puzzling. Whereas my other posts on vaccines took a few weeks of compilation and research, this post took months. I’m a huge proponent of “doing hard things”, but when it comes to the history and science and statistics of polio, there is just SO MUCH.

So much history, so much varying opinion, so much politics, and so much FEAR. It’s taken a lot of time to detangle the story and break it down to you guys in a way I think makes sense and stays factual.

To complicate the story even more, just as I was about to wrap up my research on this post, a bombshell was dropped on everything I thought I believed about polio. I found out that my own DAD had polio when he was a toddler. I’m not sure how this never came up in conversation, seeing how big of a deal it is in our culture. But my family never mentioned it.

Last night I had an excellent talk with my 93-year-old grandmother about what it was like going through a polio diagnosis with her child. I knew I had to talk it through with her before I published this post, and what she said cemented my confidence in my decision about polio vaccination even more.

This is Part 2 in the series on how we made the decision about vaccines for our family. You can find Part 1 here and I strongly recommend reading it to get our family’s backstory before reading on. 😀

If you read my last post then you know that after months of research and amidst my healing from cancer while pregnant, we decided to delay vaccination for our daughter at birth. We had a lot on our plate and did not feel comfortable making such a big decision that we couldn’t reverse. When we decided this we weren’t necessarily sure HOW LONG we would delay but knew we weren’t comfortable with either decision yet.

I left off in my last post with our decision to delay vaccination at birth. So let’s pick up right there.