(no subject)

[ocelot]

My worries about the doctor were pointless. Our scale is indeed inaccurate - off by at least 3 lbs, which makes a huge difference when 3 lbs is about 10% of your body weight, you know?

The care was much like we received from Sutter when I was pregnant (same facility, different department) - he was friendly, told us his opinion but didn't lecture, and was generally in and out as fast as possible. Leif didn't even get undressed.

I admit that I do find this a bit disconcerting, and it's one of the reasons I'd consider going with a homebirth midwife rather than Sutter next time. They're very nice and all, but it always leaves me feeling that something was missing.

He did say one interesting thing - when we expressed that we didn't want Leif to get the chicken pox vaccine*, he said that he felt it was mainly for the convenience of the parents, anyways. Wow. He wasn't anti-vaccination, mind you - he was pretty strongly in favor of the polio and pertussis vaccines, for instance. But that's an interesting take on it, especially to hear from a doctor.

Leif just stuck a band-aid on my scabby knee (bike crash the other day). I could melt :)

* Even for people generally in favor of vaccination, the chicken pox vaccine is often a different story. It has an unknown lifespan, and chicken pox infection in adults is generally much more serious than it is for children. I'd rather he get lifelong immunity by getting it naturally than risk a more serious infection later, especially given that serious chicken pox complications are rare in healthy kids.

Comments

[gdmusumeci.livejournal.com]

One case where the chickenpox vaccine in children makes some sense: if the parent has never had it.

With that being said, I think some vaccines do make quite a lot of sense, just because the potential consequences are so dire. Polio and pertussis come to mind (pertussis has had a bit of a resurgence lately); measles and mumps are also pretty gruesome. The good part is that the herd immunity phenomena does confer some statistical resistance even to those who haven't been vaccinated.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

We believe in vaccinations (well, except chicken pox :), just not in shoving as many as possible into the kid as fast as possible, as is done in the standard US vaccination schedule. I actually got the MMR myself today, as I need proof of it for a class I'm taking, and don't have my vaccination record.

The US is a little wonky in this respect. Compare the US, UK, and Japanese vaccination schedules. By the age of 2, a child receiving vaccines on the standard schedule in the US will have received 21 different injections. In the UK, 3. In Japan, 8. Admittedly, this is not entirely comparable, as the shots are combined in different manners. But in general, children in other 1st world countries are receiving significantly less in the way of vaccinations at a young age, without a negative effect on health.

[figgy-newton.livejournal.com]

I have never understood the push to immunize children straight out of the womb. Correct me if I am wrong, but if you are immune to measles and he is breastfeeding, he isn't going to get measles, right? Not only that, but unless a child is going to be spending 40 hours a week at Kindercare, the exposure to illness is very low, right? I mean between you breastfeeding him and staying at home with him, Leif was probably never exposed to anything serious. So why put all of that crap in his system?

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

According to http://www.kellymom.com/health/meds/vaccine-protection.html breastfeeding provides partial protection, but not to the extent that a vaccination would. So the baby could still get it, but the case would be milder.

But yeah, I think that the big immunization push in the US is aimed more at daycare kids.

And then there's the Hepatitis B vaccine, which they give just after birth, regardless of whether the mom is at risk for Hep B or not. That's just silly - there's basically no way a baby is going to get it unless their mom passes it to them. It's kind of like the eyedrops to protect against STD infection. They just give it regardless.

[telemicus]

hey, glad to hear Leif weighs enough :) Warning about the MMR (sorry if you know this already) but, according to the doctor who immunized me for the invasive INS procedures (they won't give you a green card unless you are immunized because they don't want to let the diseases into the country, makes sense except I've been here since 1997!) if you get pg within the next 3-6 months after an MMR vaccination then your chances of having serious lifelong birth defects are HUGE. :(

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Kinda sucks, but we probably wouldn't have been in a good position for it anyways. 3-4 months is what I was told.

I also can't give blood for 4 months. I wish I'd thought about that before, so I could have gone ahead and donated first.

[jabberwokky.livejournal.com]

The classic form of chicken pox vaccination is with live viruses. And I don't mean the doctor and needle kind; even more classic than that. When one kid catches it, all the parents send their kids to play with the kid, and then have the brothers and sisters hang out together. One nice block of everybody getting it, calamine lotion and writing sick notes to the school. Of course, we couldn't figure out if my Dad had ever had it, so he made himself scarce for awhile.

At least that's how I was raised. Maybe people are more paranoid about disease and health nowadays... I also grew up with rusty and pointy Tonka trucks in a mudpit as part of my play area. I think that would get child protective services involved now. Especially if they saw the fort we built between two trees on an empty lot. But then, I can use a miter box and know how to measure for the saw blade width as a result.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

That's the way we plan to do it.

The nice thing about the vaccine is that it has slowed it down enough that we can probably pick and choose the year we're going to do it. This year doesn't seem good because he isn't quite verbal enough. When he's 4 or so would probably be a better.