Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Growing Up Unvaccinated

From Mamamia:
I am the 70s child of a health nut. I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was one, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy, we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil.

I had an outdoor lifestyle; I grew up next to a farm, walked everywhere, did sports and danced twice a week, drank plenty of water. I wasn’t even allowed pop; even my fresh juice was watered down to protect my teeth, and I would’ve killed for white, shop-bought bread in my lunch box once in a while and biscuits instead of fruit like all the other kids.
We only ate (organic local) meat maybe once or twice a week and my mother and father cooked everything from scratch – I have yet to taste a Findus crispy pancake and oven chips were reserved for those nights when mum and dad had friends over and we got a “treat.”

“How could I, with my idyllic childhood and my amazing health food, get so freaking ill all the time?”

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely remove. (Read more.)
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2 comments:

The North Coast said...

The three things in this world that have saved more lives, millions and millions of lives, than anything else in the world:
1. Washing your hands.

2. Cheap, clean, drinkable water at the tap.

3. Vaccines,vaccines, vaccines.

Vaccines save lives. Vaccines do NOT cause autism. Homeopathic medicine doesn't cure anything and is not medicine.

Jennifer Gregory Miller said...

The whole article focuses on protecting our children from disease. While vaccines can help some diseases, we cannot keep our child from never getting sick. And the redemptive power of suffering is not in the equation. If my child catches tonsillectomy, while I wish he would not suffer, it is a chance help him learn how suffering is not bad in God's eyes. He allows us to suffer, as His Son did.

This idea of preserving our children from all things is unrealistic. We just can't live perfect lives here on earth.

I disagree that some vaccines are necessary. This is an age of daycare, both parents working, and to over vaccinate is the way to keep our children from staying home and interrupting the planned lives. Chicken pox is an example.