she didn't vaccinate

okay, readers. before you read this post, i just want to say that i'm not really a research kind-of gal. and i'm not having kids of my own right now, so i don't really have any reason to research vaccination. if you are looking for a post full of venn diagrams and pro and con lists, please look further. : ) because this is a "what would ami do?" and it's simply about what ami did. and she did not have any of her six children vaccinated.

i did interview my mom, so i guess that counts as research. here's what i asked her:

lg: what were your main influences in your decision not to vaccinate us?
ami: my main influence was Dr. Robert Mendelsohn's book How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of your Doctor. Dr. Mendelsohn was a pediatrician for several decades and he became convinced that vaccinations were causing more harm than good.

lg: what was the primary reason you decided not to vaccinate us?
ami: it just didn’t make sense to me to inject disease among other things into a vulnerable newborn’s bloodstream, especially when most of the diseases were pretty benign like mumps and measles, etc.
also, Dr. Mendelsohn had a theory that auto immune diseases were going to increase because we were overriding our natural immune responses with forced immune responses thus compromising our immune systems.

lg: did you have any fears about that decision?
ami: yes. even after all my research i had to carry all the "what-if's" through to their end and trust God with the results. the scariest for me were polio and tetanus but in the end i felt you were better off without them. your dad and i were always in agreement with these major decisions.


those were my burning questions for my mom and they encouraged me. i hope they encouraged you.

i know there are so many ways of thinking about this topic. i know there are so many factors, so many fears, so much research involved, so many opinions to listen to. i know it's not an easy decision either way.

but it is a choice, and i know that it's not often presented as such. if your doctor tells you to do it, you do it. that's the way it works oftentimes. my encouragement is to at least do your research. understand what is in the vaccination shots. understand that there will be consequences to both choices. and ultimately, trust God. He loves you and your children [or future children in my case] and He will take care of you as you need! He is good, all the time.

all six of us duvick kids were really healthy children and are really healthy adults. to this day, i've never had a vaccination.

a while ago, i wrote this post. if you read it, if hope you know that every mom i know is an awesome mom. i don't personally know any mom that wouldn't do everything in their power to keep their child happy, healthy and safe. so be encouraged!