Mom without a clue

November 4, 2010. Lucas holds his bottle for longer than 60 seconds while keeping his ankles crossed - because he’s classy like that.

(As I type, Lucas has woken up from his morning nap and is watching President Obama intently on The View.  As some of you may know, when he gets fussy, one of the few ways to calm him down is to chant, ‘Lu-cas for pre-si-dent! Lu-cas for pre-si-dent!’

So I think it’s pretty evident.  We’re on our way to the Oval Office! But first things first - he needs to get off the daycare wait list and into his age group at Angela’s Children’s Center!)

This video is of Lucas taking off his pacifier all on his own.  Other milestones that our baby has reached as he waved goodbye to his 3-month mark last week:

1. He’s chuckling real, big boy chuckles!

2. He knows that I’m his mom and follows me around the room with his eyes, smiles and kicks and gets really excited when I come near him.  I think he can smell that Jay is his dad, but since Jay got a new haircut, he’s kind of looking at his daddy like, “Hmm… I think I know you, but I’m not sure. You look different.”

3. He is sitting up on his own and can stay that way for a few minutes before leaning to one side. 

4. This one is scary - he is pushing himself up to a standing position on his nap nanny, which means that he has to be buckled in pretty much everywhere (the changing table, nap nanny, bouncer, etc.). Even when buckled, he still tries to roll over to one side or sit-up.  FREAKY!

5. He has outgrown the newborn Ergo insert and can now sit inside the carrier comfortably, long legs dangling from the side and his upper body hanging out of the top.  Yesterday, we had errands to run at Target, Ikea and Toyota, and I later got my nails done (standing up, mind you, so I could rock him around if necessary) and we met up with friends at The Mission for coffee mid-afternoon, and he pretty much stayed in the Ergo, either asleep or people watching. We rewarded him with a lovely tub bath with rubber ducky - and yes, he can sit up in the tub as well!

Happy 3-months and a bit to our baby Lucas! You are so loved. Also, happy birthday to Lucas’ ninong Axel (my older brother)! We love you!

This is how my afternoons are spent… just chatting with L about sweet nothings.  At 0:58 I try and teach him to say “Mama” and he kind of sounds it out. (((sigh)))

This post is about vaccines, which always polarizes parents and doctors (and public health peeps) because when you talk about vaccines, as a parent, I think you inevitably have to think about autism, regardless of whether or not you believe that the two are linked. 

The impetus to write this happened yesterday, when I had to explain to my irate dad over Skype why Lucas was going on an alternative vaccine schedule.  He is still getting all of the vaccines recommended by the APA, but there is no way in hell I am allowing him to get 5-6 vaccines at a time.

Just to contextualize the debate, much of the vaccine brouhaha was spurred by a 1998 study by Dr. Wakefield linking vaccines, particularly the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, and specifically the measles virus RNA, to autism.  But Dr. Wakefield’s study was retracted early this year by the medical journal that published the study (The Lancet) and the CDC, Mayo Clinic, among other solid sources and medical journals, because according to these sources and other studies that attempted to replicate Wakefield’s study, there was little conclusive evidence supporting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. 

The medical community thinks that Dr. Wakefield created a fear of vaccines among families/parents, and that he caused many parents not to vaccinate their children, which in turn caused children to die unnecessarily of vaccine-preventable diseases. I do think that there’s some truth to this.

As a new parent, you don’t know who to believe: Dr. Wakefield and like-minded physicians and parents who have made it their life mission to link vaccines to autism and other neurological diseases; or the public health community, including big pharmaceutical companies, who believe that creating and maintaining herd immunity is important.  With regards to the pharma companies, they have a financial stake in making sure that their vaccines are being used in the way that they have made them (usually in combination form, meaning there are as many as 6 vaccines in 1 shot), so I am less likely to side with them.

We have so much information at our fingertips.  This is what we conclusively know:

- children with NDs (neurological disorders, which include autism spectrum disorders) have unusually high levels of toxicity in their bodies, including levels of aluminum and mercury;

- mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, cow tissue, are ingredients in vaccines and have been known to cause many of the medical issues that children with autism and other NDs suffer from;

- there was a rise in autism when the number of vaccines containing mercury was increased in the early 1990s, and there was a decrease in the past few years now that mercury has been removed from vaccines.  Unfortunately, the CDC has allowed it back in in the form of the flu shot, which is often pushed on pregnant mothers and children. I refused to get the flu shot after reassuring my OBs in Manila and here in San Francisco that I had already gotten the flu in my 4th month of pregnancy, and a severe one at that, and that there were no complications with the baby in utero.  It came as soon as it left and we managed to lower my fever with a sponge bath (I am allergic to fever reducers).

- before vaccines are added to the CDC’s schedule, they are tested individually and children are typically tracked for 6 weeks. However, with this methodology, conditions like autism, ADHD, or autism, which are typically delayed onset, are never captured;

- vaccines are never tested in combination, which means the practice of giving six vaccines at once has never been tested for safety;

(Source: http://www.generationrescue.org/)

We have all of this information, on top of the many parents who have gone on national television and on the web saying that they can conclusively point to when their children started exhibiting symptoms of NDs, and that point was after receiving routine vaccinations.

So yes, I have definitely been affected by any fear created by Dr. Wakefield’s study and by high-profile parents like Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson-Peet who go on Oprah and advocate on behalf of their children with autism.  It seems to Jay and me that the best thing we can do as parents is to keep researching, to distill the fear-mongering from facts, and to care for Lucas to the best of our abilities. 

We are definitely giving him all of the vaccinations recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but we are not going to follow their vaccination schedule.  Instead, we are spacing out the vaccinations every month (instead of every other month, as recommended by the APA), and are following the alternative schedule provided by Dr. Sears in his Vaccine Book.  If you are a parent and you haven’t heard of Dr. Sears - where have you been?!? Hightail over to the website ASAP! The Dr. Sears Baby Book has been an incredible resource guide thus far - the Sears family of pediatricians and RNs have been informative and thorough thus far so we’re sticking with them as a resource.

Here’s the schedule:

2 months: DTap, Rotavirus

3 months: Pc, HIB

4 months, DTaP, Rotavirus

5 months: Pc, HIB

6 months: DTaP, Rotavirus

7 months: Pc, HIB

9 months: Polio, Flu (2 doses)

12 months: Mumps, Polio

15 months: Pc, HIB

18 months: DTaP, Chickenpox

21 months: Flu

2 years: Rubella

2 years, 6 months (Hep B, Hep A) start the Hep B at birth if Mom, Dad, or any close family members are Hep B carriers

3 years: Hep B, Measles, Flu

3 years, 6 months: Hep B, Hep A

4 years: DTaP, Polio, Flu

5 years: MMR, Flu (it may be ok to group them together into the MMR shot for the booster because an older child may handle it better.  An alternative choice would be to give the M, M, and R boosters separately over a few years again, starting age 5).

6 years: Chickenpox

12 years: Tdap, HPV

12 years, 2 months: HPV

13 years: HPV, Meningcoccal

NOTE: the flu vaccine would start between 6 and 12 months if nearing flu season, then yearly thereafter, up to age 5, as flu season approaches.  Try to use ONLY A MERCURY-FREE SHOT.  If not available, don’t get it that year.

Here’s the reasoning for the schedule:

- suggests only 1 aluminum containing vaccine at a time in the infant years (choose the right brands, ask your pediatrician). by spreading the shots, you spread out exposure so infants can process the aluminum without it reaching a toxic level;

- gives no more than 2 vaccines at any one time to limit and spread out exposure to numerous chemicals so a baby’s system can process each more individually;

- gives no more than 2 vaccines at a time to limit potential side effects and so parents and doctors can isolate more the vaccine culprit should there be a side effect;

- begins with the diseases that have the potential to do the most harm to infants (DTap, Rotavirus, HIB, Pc)

- delays shots that are fairly mild for infants (rubella, hep A)’

- delays shots for diseases that a baby is extremely unlikely to catch during the first few years of life (polio, Hep B) and gives them after the more important shots are almost done. a toddler’s nervous system is more mature and able to handle chemical exposure than an infant’s.

- unless mother is positive, illogical to give Hep B shot to newborns (common practice in hospitals) because it is a sexually transmitted disease and the vaccine can cause side effects that mimic the symptoms of severe infection

- it gives live virus vaccines 1 at a time so that a baby’s immune system can deal with each disease separately.

So there you have it!

I’ll have to forward this post to my dad so he can read about my (and Dr Sears’) reasoning behind the alternative schedule.  He is convinced that I need to get Lucas the Hep B vaccine because we live in San Francisco and take the muni and live in a high-immigrant community (and consequently are exposed to lots of people who come from SEA - Hep B central).  But I told him that Lucas would have to have an open wound and someone infected with Hep B would have to spit on him directly or put some sort of a bodily fluid on the open wound for him to contract the disease. And this wouldn’t happen because I’d have to drop-kick this hypothetical person first before he came close to L.

Anyways, I look at Lucas and he can barely tolerate 1 more ounce of milk if it’s not introduced to him slowly and gradually, let alone chemicals.  I just want to be safe, you know?  So we are giving him his Vitamin A (known to protect the infant’s brain) and Vitamin C (known to protect the immune system) from hereon and will do our best to protect him from disease, bullies, religious fanatics, aggressive homeless people, and other live toxins.

The caveat is this: WebMD parent-doctor, beware.  Seek the advice of your child’s pediatrician before embarking on a path, get as much information as you can and really be your child’s advocate.  It’s so easy to go to extremes… my old boss didn’t vaccinate any of her 3 kids, and I remember her always going home early because she had to care for a sick child. Diseases like polio have all but been eradicated in the US because of vaccinations, so if someone were to ask me where I sat on the vaccination fence, I’d say that I’m definitely over the fence, but I, along with my husband, have chosen to hop over carefully and cautiously, a little slower than others in pace, but if it means a healthier little Lucas without adverse reactions, then we’ll take our grand ‘ole time, no problemo.

A friend asked me a few weeks ago if my love for Lucas was instantly born or if it took a while to take hold – the unconditional caring for another being, the impulse to protect and nourish.  I told her that of course it was instant, that the moment they placed him on my chest, I knew that we were forever in each other’s lives, and that I, as his mother, would be the keeper of his wellbeing until he could fend for himself in this big, bad world of ours. But now that Lucas has reached several milestones (he’s been baptized, he now has a very social smile and is cooing and aaahing and interacting like crazy), I realize that what I feel for this little being has grown about as much as he has over the past couple of months.  And he’s grown quite a bit, exploding out of his newborn onesies and moving up to the 3-6 month size range comfortably. 

I spend my days sniffing every body part of his that I can get my nose on.  My favorite areas are the top of his lips, behind his ears, his palms and knuckles, and his feet (yes, I even like Lucas’ toe jam – I think the semi-smelly, semi-sweet odor of his toes – long like E.T.’s and his mommy’s - should be bottled, its very own Parfum de Toe Bliss).  Jay and I spend our nights hovering over our son, clamoring over who gets to sniff him first and for how long.  Just this morning Jay turned to me and asked if I remembered our first year of marriage back in Manila, just us two, sleeping for 8-9 hours a night, uninterrupted.  I remember those days and appreciate them, but we have so much more to look forward to now with Lucas in our lives: smelly toes, spit-up galore, projectile poop and pee, basically all of the bodily functions and fluids that help our little baby live and survive in the world. And the smiles – toss the Zoloft, all you need is your baby to smile back at you and all of a sudden you forget that it’s three in the morning and you’re wiping mustard-like curds of poop off his butt.

Happy two months, Lucas!  We are forever changed because of you. Bring on the poop, bring on the funk. 

A few new pics of Lucas and introducing Mr. Pillow, his best friend.  He spends at least an hour a day babbling sweet nothings to this object and it is hilarious and adorable to watch.  Lucas has also reached out and touched Mr. Pillow, albeit with fisted hands (not yet with an open palm), so he is beginning to connect his hand/arm to his eye and brain. 

It’s been incredible to watch him grow and develop.

OK, duty calls.  Morning bath time!