Day 30 Postpartum. To immunise, or not to immunise?

Vinnie was four weeks old yesterday and I am not sure whether to say 'wow, time flies' or 'longest four weeks of my life'. I think I will adopt more of a 'the glass is half full' approach by saying that the last four weeks have flown by (only because I know that the next four weeks will seem much longer as I won't be in a drug induced stupor for the first part! Maybe I need to remedy that? Hmmm... unlikely.).

Vinnie's oxygen needs have been on the increase (again) the last few days. Just when I think we are making some progress everything spirals out of control (in my mind only, not really the case). I spend a lot of time beside his incubator giving him little pep talks (Come on Vinnie! Big deep breaths! You can do it!). I spoke to the consultant on ward rounds this morning and he said that he thinks (in hindsight) he should have put him on a higher dose of steroids. He has been on the steroids for just over a week now and they started weaning him off them yesterday. Vinnie clearly is not keen on this idea as his oxygen requirements have gone up since then. The consultant has now opted to increase the dose of steroids to a high dose for the next three days to hopefully sort him out. Well, fingers crossed. Mum will stand by on the sidelines and continue with the encouragement.

On a positive note though (remember - glass half full), Vinnie continues to gain weight and is now only 5 grams off 2 kilos! The consultant also mentioned this morning that as he gets bigger, his lungs get bigger, and he will hopefully grow out of this. (That wasn't exactly what he said - but that was how I understood it anyway.)

Aside from the progress update on the little man, today's topic of conversation revolves around Immunisation. At NICU they hold daily sessions for parents on different subjects - CPR, breastfeeding, immunisation etc. I attended the immunisation session a couple weeks ago and left feeling a little more informed about the schedule of jabs that Vinnie will receive from 6 weeks of age - what they are for, when to have them, why to have them etc. It all seemed very straight forward and the only question I had was 'why wouldn't you immunise your kids?'.

On Friday night we were invited around for dinner at a friends place and somehow got on to the subject of vaccines and immunisation. They are currently 25 weeks pregnant and I recommended that they look in to the flu vaccine this year as it is currently free for pregnant women and it covers the swine flu strain H1N1. Well, it was one of those harmless conversational pieces that opened up can of worms, or maybe a sack of venomous snakes would be a more apt description! The husband was very anti-immunisation and the wife was pro-immunisation. Cam thought this was hilarious and wouldn't drop the subject. My womanly intuition was picking up on the potential for marital disharmony between this lovely couple. ('Drop it Cam!' I mentioned twice, he didn't listen.)

I didn't realise I was so ignorant on the subject of vaccines/immunisations though! Apparently they are completely unnecessary and are keeping diseases alive across the world. We were even accused of being sheep for following the status quo (according to Mr M approximately 80% of the population immunise and 20% don't). Maybe I am a complete ignoramus but I choose to put my faith in the medical profession (particularly in light of current situation - pediatricians are the most Godly of doctors) and if they say immunise I say 'Yes!'.

So, for a bit of fun I thought we would have a poll on this subject. Interested to hear all your views on this! Will 80% of the viewers of this blog tick 'yes' and 20% 'no'? (I personally think that the majority of the 20% reside in less fortunate/educated areas with a very small few being conspiracy theorists like our friend Mr M).

Click on the top of the blog to vote on this weeks poll!