Janey Lee

I finished the Dr. Sears vaccination book and I think it was really great. I really recomend it for all parents, or better yet, for pregnant women.

Here are my final thoughts regarding the vaccination issue.

I think that breaking vaccines up into the parts rather than doing them in combo shots is perhaps not the best idea. The MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) is particularly controversial because of its suspected link to autism and the fact they they have live vaccines in the shots. One solution that some parents come up with is to give them as separate shots over a few years. The problem with this approach is that it exposes them to three times the chemicals that are in the shots. Also, its not convenient and your baby will have to have more shots over all.

I have decided that I am going to delay Matilda’s MMR until she is 3 years old. That way, she will be big enough to handle the germs in the shots and I will feel comfortable giving her all the germs at once. I am not concerned about autism being caused by shots, but if they were, you would know by 3 years old if there was a problem and that way, you can feel assured that the autism was not caused by the MMR. I think you can safely delay the HEP B shots for the same reason. HIB, Pc, Rotavirus and Pertussis (in the DTaP) are dangerous and fairly common infant diseases and I think its important to vaccinate your kid for these things on schedule if you are not breastfeeding, and if you kids is around other kids (daycare or playgroups for instance). I think its kind of stupid to vaccinate kids for chicken pox, but we are not sure if Pablo has had it, so we will vaccinate Matilda for that. Matilda has already complete her polio vaccines, but I think you can safely delay that shot since polio is almost unheard of in the US.

I hope this helps any of your other new moms out there to make vaccine decisions. Let me know if you have questions.

As I am wont to do, I am now obsessed with vaccinations. I have learned so much is the last 12 hours.

First, I looked up exactly what vaccinations Matilda has had. Here is the list:

2 Months
Haemophilus influenzae (Hib), Pneumococcal conjugate, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (DTaP), Rotavirus, Polio, Hepatitis B

4 Months
Same as above

6 Months
Pneumococcal conjugate, Diptheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (DTaP), Rotavirus, Polio

12 Months
Pneumococcal conjugate, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A

That means that when she was a tiny little 2 month baby, she was getting vaccinated for 8 things at once! I am kind of taken aback now that I have reviewed it all.

I also found out that my assumption that all the vaccines were necessary for school admission was false. NYC public schools only require the following for kindergarten admissions:
- Dtap: 4 doses (Matilda has had 3)
- Polio: 3 doses (Matilda has had 3)
- MMR: 2 doses (Matilda has had 0)
- Hepatitis B: 3 doses (Matilda has had 3)
- Varicella: 1 dose (kids aren’t supposed to get chicken pox anymore ?!?! – Matilda has had 0)

So that means that to enter school, she actually is not required to have the following vaccines:
- Hepatitis A (Matilda has had 1)
- Pneumococcal conjugate (Matilda has had 4)
- Rotavirus (Matilda has had 3)
- Haemophilus influenzae – Hib (Matilda has had 2)

Julianna gave me a free copy of Dr. Sear’s vaccination book which I am studying intently.

Matilda has the following remaining vaccinations scheduled:
- 1 more DTap and maybe one more at 4 years
- 1 more Hib (not required for school)
- 1 MMR within the next 6 months and 1 more at 4 years
- 1 Varicella (Chicken pox) and maybe one more at 4 years
- Unknown number of Hep A vaccinations

I am going to read up on these so I can make informed decisions on when (and if) Matilda will get these shots. Dr. Sears recommends an alternate immunization schedule and I might decided to do a modified version for the future. More later..

A friend of mine just sent me this very interesting blog post. My personal belief is that is not socially responsible to not vaccinate your child, but there are people who advocate not against vaccinations but the combined vaccinations. Its an interesting idea to give the vaccinations one at a time to monitor for side effects. Its more cruel I guess to stick them over and over again, and the doctor’s office will be annoyed that they have to special order vaccinations just for you, but maybe its worth it?

I would really appreciate any comments on this topic from those with experience. Did you vaccinate your kids, did you do all of them as scheduled by the doctor?

Web 2.0 projects make me tear up sometimes. Its kind of the same feeling I get when I imagine Matilda going to college or something like that. I blinked and the web grew up without me really noticing. It seems like just yesterday when I coded my first HTML page (ok ok, it was 15 years ago) and now there is the newest site I am excited about, TotSpot. I haven’t even TRIED the website, but judging from other stuff I’ve seen from the development team (called WeBreakStuff), it looks awesome.

From what I have read its like Facebook, for your BABY! Perhaps I live too deeply in the technical world, (I registered the domain name for Matilda the DAY SHE WAS BORN), but I think lots of people want to create online spaces for their kids to let friends and family know what is new with their little one. Quite a few friends have asked me to help them put together sites like this one for their kids.

Totspot, from what I can guess in the screenshot and what I have read online, will let you post photos, videos, and milestones for your baby. This is great because right now, I have the photos on Flickr, and the videos on Vimeo and the blog on her site. It would be nice to have it all centralized. The profiles are not available to the public which is great for parents concerned about privacy (poor Matilda, no privacy).

There is another site called babyspot that does a similar thing that launched recently, but the design inst as cool. Bundlo and MyBabyYourBaby make baby websites which look pretty nice, but don’t have that web 2.0 zing.

By the way, I am a sucker for ways to combine technology and babies, but this just looks crazy. Sure, we all would love to have these kinds of metrics, but who wants to enter all that data in? Trust me, I tried to keep an Excel spreadsheet of poops, pees, pumpings and feedings when Matilda was first born. If it didn’t work for me, it wont work for many.

I laughed out loud at this thing that Angela sent me. Enjoy. http://laughingsquid.com/visual-baby-instructions-for-new-parents/