You Give Me Fever

Monday morning Bella woke up bright and happy as usual, she was a little warm but totally fine nonetheless. By 10am, I could definitely tell that she was not herself; she even requested a nap at 10:30am! UNHEARD OF! She slept for 5.5 hours and I started to get a little worried so I went in her room and she was laying there with a 102.8 fever and soaking wet as a result of an overloaded diaper. Thank you pull-ups! She just looked up at me and in a feeble voice said, "HELP!" It was really cute! From there her fever remained constant at 102.5 for almost 24 hours. With all the swine flu hype, I was freaking out. She is completely 100% back to normal now, I'm still a little nervous about taking her out so soon after being sick as her defenses are still down. I am doing everything in my power to protect us, and hopefully the swine flu issue is in check soon.

Here she is simultaneously drinking pedia-lite applying strawberry lip smackers chap stick.

All of this has been weighing on me heavily for the past few days. As many of you know, we have chosen to wait to immunize Bella until she was older and after her second birthday, we started the first round. Guess what?? She isn't autistic, growing superfluous limbs or bleeding from the eyes! All joking aside, the issue of immunizing vs not immunizing has been a big topic at our house for years. Do we inject toxins in our baby's body, or allow her body to be ravaged by life threatening debilitating diseases? (For the record: I am pro, Dan is con) Do the benefits outweigh the risks? It has been my mission to really get to the heart of the matter.

Here is what I have found thus far:

NOTHING THAT I CAN BELIEVE!

Dan attended a continuing education seminar where I like to say, "They put the fear in him" and turned him against vaccinating our children. He came home with a book called, 'THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN BLOOD: VACCINATION I$ NOT IMMUNIZATION' by Tim O'Shea, wherein it sites 349 articles and published works stating how vaccinations are the worst possible way to go. Here is the deal: The articles in the book are summaries of summaries. Nice huh? So who is to say that they didn't glean what useful information they needed to publish the "fear book" to persuade as many people as possible not to become immunized.

The literature given to me by Bella's pediatrician combined with articles, etc that I have researched in books and on the Internet are pro vaccination and seem to have my baby’s best interest at heart. They are backed by reliable resources and I am inclined to believe them. Here is where the devils advocate part of my brain comes in and I wonder if my sources really are reliable or if they are trying to make a sale and are the wolf in sheep's clothing after all. I honestly do not know where to go from here. This is so extremely vexing! I for years have been trying to research every angle of this so I can make an informed decision...the work continues...

Here are a few of my most recent stumbling blocks:

1. I found a source that addressed both sides of the issue yesterday when I was reading the encyclopedia of natural medicine. In the index I looked up the one and only source, it had on immunizations, which took me to a chapter on Asthma wherein it explained that they did a study on children who both had been and hadn't been given the pertussis vaccination. The result being that 11% of the children that HAD been given the vaccination eventually developed asthma and 1% of the children developed asthma that HADN'T been given pertussis vaccination, and 3% of children developed asthma who were given other vaccinations. Here is where it gets interesting: "Another finding to weigh: in the group not immunized to pertussis; sixteen developed whooping cough, compared to only one in the immunized group. It appears to be a trade off, a greater risk for asthma with vaccination and a greater risk for whooping cough without."

2. I decided to look up vaccinations next; it took me to Multiple Sclerosis! YAY! While the cause of MS is not conclusive, one of the suspected causes is viral infections, primarily measles. Patients with MS have elevated levels of antibodies to measles. At one time, it was believed that MS was due to an ongoing measles infection. This was ruled out and it is believed to be an autoimmune disease. In Dan's fear book under measles (page 90) it states that the MMR vaccine, given to prevent measles causes MS. Contradiction.

Back to square one.

Something that I can compare all of this to in my life is, The Book of Mormon vs anti Mormon literature. I know which one is true because of my faith and testimony in the former of the two. My conclusion until I have proof is that I need to have the same approach and search, ponder, and pray about all information on opposing sides of immunizations in hopes that I can come to a conclusion about what to do to protect Bella.

Any and all opinions and information you can give me would be most helpful.

I'm sure that I sound absolutely crazy. Thanks for putting up with my ramblings anyway!