Children's Vaccines Health Center

My Vaccine Decision: What 3 Moms Did

My Vaccine Decision: Fully Vaccinated continued...

Do you ever worry about your decision?

No, I don’t. When my older daughter was two, she got rotavirus. We had to take her to the hospital she was so dehydrated. They told us that if she hadn’t gotten the rotavirus vaccine, the illness would have been worse and she would have had it longer. I can’t imagine having her feel even worse. Like with things like chicken pox -- I don’t understand people going to “chicken pox parties.” Why would you want your child to have something that would hurt them? It’s not like a cold. I teach sixth graders and last year, just on my team alone, we had five students who had chicken pox and they were out a good two weeks. I was pregnant at the time and I was scared.

How do you feel about your decision now?

We will definitely continue to fully vaccinate. Our thinking, both of us, is that most of the time what could happen to you without immunizations is worse than the common side effects, like a leg hurting for a day or two, or a fever. If you can keep your child from getting something, why wouldn’t you?

Public health officials stress that vaccination is important for the public good, not just the individual child. Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I completely agree with this. We’re now seeing diseases that were almost unknown in my 37 years of life coming around again, like whooping cough. People wait, they think because all these other kids have the shots, I don’t need to give them to my kid. But there are so many people getting on that bandwagon that now some of these diseases are making a comeback.