A reply from the doctor post

I started to reply to the comments and decided it was getting too long so I might as well make it a post.

I do understand the pressure the doctors are under. Unfortunately, I think it leads to bad medical practice. Individual attention is sacrificed because of the assembly line system of care. Same thing happens with labor/birth. Your crazy if you want to do it another way. I think what Kelli is trying to say (correct me if I'm wrong) is that we wish the doctors would appreciate that we want to take an active roll in our children's medical care. They see it as an inconvenience and they are doing us a favor if they treat our child in the way we ask them to. Vaccination is something for each parent to take seriously and its totally between them and God. As long as you are educated about your decision and you think you are doing the best thing for your specific child then that is what you should do. Same thing with labor and delivery.

Your the parent, it should be your decision and that decision should be respected.

I'm not mad at the doctors, I'm mad at the system. Our system of medical care is broken. It's no wonder many mothers I've talked to have stopped doing well visits. The doctors don't want to listen to them or try to understand. Too many doctors have a God complex. And their are too many crazy people out there that don't respect doctors and just want to mow them over with their opinions. If you don't want to listen to your doctors opinion and get medical counsel. Then don't go to the doctor. Obviously you can take care of everything yourself (sarcasm). I know I need second opinions and I have questions... that's why I go. Does that mean I will do everything the doctor says... no. My doctor told me my milk hit a plateau at about 5 months and that I should start feeding him full servings of real food. I called a lactation consultant and she told me something completely different. Your milk doesn't hit a plateau. He's just going through a growth spurt and needs to eat more to get your milk supply up. I started letting him nurse more often and everything was fine. If I would have given him large servings of real food my milk supply would have went down which is the opposite of what Corben was trying to do.

Are doctors wrong sometimes? Yes. Do most of them want to admit it? No.

If you had 10 doctors in a room you would probably get 10 or maybe 8 different opinions.

I know they are doing the best they can with what they know, their experiences etc. But they need to at least entertain the idea that someone may want to do something different than what they suggest.

Medicine and science is ever-changing. One day coffee is bad for you the next day it isn't same thing with chocolate. One day Pluto is a planet and then the next day it's not.

I hope that one day they can without a doubt say that vaccines are safe for all children and that I can vaccinate without any concern. That would be wonderful. But right now.. I can't do that. Corben has already had a reaction to the dtap that he had for the first time at his last visit. You know the beautiful thing about that? If I would have followed the traditional schedule, I would have no idea which vaccine gave him the reaction. But because I separated it out I know exactly which one it was. I have reasons behind what I am doing. I'm not just doing it because its the "thing" to do. I wouldn't go through this much headache just because it's the "thing" to either be totally for vaccines or totally against them.

I want to feel like I can have open conversations with my doctor. I want to know what's going in Corben's body and how it affects my child. I want to give Corben as much time as possible to recover from each vaccine. I want to be able to know that I did everything I thought was right, if something does happen. Even with a modified schedule it doesn't ensure that my child won't be the 1 in 1000 or whatever the statistics are for each vaccine to get a serious reaction like seizures or brain damage. But this is what I have a peace about. I will have done what I thought was best and that is all I can do. That is all any parent can do.