by Jennifer Geitenbeek

Created on: October 25, 2010

Coming from a mum to 6 kids I believe that all immunisations are necessary. Over the years I have known many parents to do natural immunisations with their kids supposedly because the children are healthier. I am yet to see this, and maybe I am wrong by wanting to make sure my kids are protected by a vaccine that is known to do its job. The kids immunised naturally (I have no idea how they do this) always appear to be sick with something. One little girl I know of is now 4 years old and has had at least 5 hospital stays each year since she was born for some infection or other. When she contracted whooping cough she came very close to death. Measles saw her in hospital for almost 3 weeks and at one stage she was put into a drug induced coma and was not expected to live. This little girl will not be given Panadol for a fever, she will not be given cough medicine if she is sick with a cold or flu, she wasn't even given anything to relieve the pain of teething. And the worst part is, that her little brother is going through the same thing.

Whether it be chicken pox, measles, diphtheria or any other diseases, I believe that you should do everything you can possibly do to keep your child healthy and reduce the risk of them getting these diseases (and others) and therefore using the immunisations. In Australia it is difficult for parents of children that do natural immunisations to get into child care centres, and I think that this is fair. Call me old-fashioned but I keep my kids home from school when they are sick. I don't allow visitors to come over when there are sickies in the household, and as much as I don't want to put my baby through the trauma of an injection, I would rather that than have her suffer horribly from a disease that could have been easily avoided. The argument that immunisations cause autism and a whole host of other problems. My son was born 13 weeks early, went through 2 doses of septicaemia, has a mild heart murmur and for every immunisation he would get a horrible fever that would hospitalise him. Still I made sure he got his injections. 14 years old and he is perfectly healthy, as are the rest of my children. Would they be that way had they not been immunised? This is something I do not bother to think about it because I believe, as a parent, that I did the right thing. When the World Health Organisation can prove 100% that these immunisations are worse for the child than the actual disease is, maybe I'll change my mind.

Immunisations for people and vaccinations for animals exist for a reason. For people we get immunised against Hep B, tetanus, measles, chicken pox, diphtheria and a whole host of other diseases. For animals – sheep and cattle, black leg, pulpy kidney, etc, horses get vaccinated against tetanus and strangles, (now Hendra virus as well), dogs get vaccinated against parvo virus, kennel cough etc. why do we do it for our animals, and not for our kids? Does this mean that we are placing our animals on a higher pedestal than our kids?
In Australia, they now reward you for fully immunising your children, you receive a payment of around $AUD150.00. This seems to be what it now takes to get some people to immunise their children. Is this what it takes to get people to immunise their kids?

Immunisations are there for a reason.

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