Re: Vacination Problems
Asked by liv
Question:
Has any one incountered any side effects from getting their children immunised, the doctors don't like to admit or speak about this topic, but I've heard many stories and although my son alredy had delays after
getting immunised his only two words he had learnt went away and it's been 3 more ,years now and he still hasn't uttered a word.
My Advice:
Firstly, Remember when speaking to doctors it is your RIGHT to insist that they listen to you and your concerns about your child, even though some doctors think speaking to them is a privilege and make us feel we are being ridiculous or wasting their time! When I feel like I am not being hear by a doctor I remind myself that I am contributing to his new set of golf clubs or new investment property!! LOL it really helps me stay confident.
Immunisation carries only a VERY small risk of side effects. Sadly though, a lot of publicity and public discussion about them mean many people are misinformed and immunisations have been blamed for everything from autism, to ADHD/ADD, Aspergers, food allergies, all types of developmental delays ... and on and on it goes.
I read a WHO study a few years ago when I was doing family day care - I was concerned about taking children into my home who were NOT immunised so was researching the associated risk/statistics/side affects etc so I could discuss this with parents.
The study found that even in western countries where some childhood illness was almost eradicated say, 10 or 15 years ago, there was resurgence evident by the late 1980s in some things due to parents opting NOT to have their children immunised. Don't quote me here as it was some time ago I read this, and I don't know what further studies have been done so I may be wrong or this info could be out of date ...... I think from memory the study used Polio as one of the examples and stated that by about 1980 it was almost unheard of in first world countries, but then started becoming more common in tandem with more parents opting out of the immunisation process.
Also, do you realise that generally most boys develop their speech up to a year later than girls? It is due to the brain structure and wiring, and connections with speech.
You will generally find (but this is not always the case) in kids who had any kind of developmental delay before immunisation, that the immunisation is not the problem.
Regarding your little guy - ask your GP to refer you to an audiology clinic asap! These places test more intensely than a regular hearing check and they can isolate specific hearing problems that many other tests miss or rate as "normal range for age".
My son was advanced in every area of baby-5yr development but then started school and wasn't progressing as he should. We had gone through all the baby health checks as you should, and everything was ok - sight, hearing, physical development etc. He wasn't a huge talker until he was just over 21/2 but this was put down to the fact that his little body was busy doing so many other things in succession - he sat up unaided at 41/2 mths, walked alone without support at 91/2, had the comprehension of a 2-3 yo by age 1 (when told something was behind him or behind an object for example, he knew exactly what that meant), he could recite several pages of his favourite books by 21/2 and so on and so on.
He wasn't going backwards but he certainly wasn't progressing at the same pace as the other kids. I mean, to anyone who wasn't aware of his spelling and reading trouble, he appeared fine and completely on par with his peers. But parents know their kids and for this child to have gone from being at the absolute top of the "curve" in his blue book (you'll know what that is if you are Australia) in the first 5 years to slowly slipping behind all of a sudden after starting school told me there was something being missed. He went to speech pathology, had Occupational therapy, we tried a reading tutor, he did the WISCII test (kind of IQ test) and was considered of good intelligence for his age ..... nothing seemed to shed any light on things.
Then when he was about 7 or 8 I was absolutely fed up as I KNEW something wasn't right and for several years I felt like his teachers and whoever listened to me just thought I was some neurotic mother who expected a "gifted or super child" - which was so far from true!
Finally someone suggested I take him to an audiology clinic which performed hearing tests but in more detail - checking very high-very low range decibels and other things to determine if the hearing was only not working in specific areas.
Sure enough - poor little guy wasn't hearing every high and very low range. It became evident that the villi in his ears that are responsible for bouncing sound around weren't working properly (or something like that) So sounds like th, ph, st, shh all sounded the same to him.... and same meant it was difficult to separate and identify sounds in words when reading and spelling. As it turned out we were able to just manage this at home without any intervention or major expense, but we had to go back a few steps because he had pretty well missed the basics of early reading in kindergarten to year 2.
Of course this is only one problem with one child, and there are so many different reasons for speech or developmental delays - but sometimes they are really so simple they are overlooked in favour of more sinister causes.
Relax and do a bit of research - there is a wealth of information on the internet that you can discuss with doctors or specialists you visit.
Good luck and I hope everything goes well for you and your little man 
(November 19th) (
