HIB Vaccine

What is HIB?

• HIB ( Haemophilus Influenza Type B) is a bacterium
• can cause serious illness such as: meningitis, blood infections, bone infections, and pneumonia
• transmitted like a cold through an infect person’s cough, mucus, or saliva
• usually remain only in the nose, ears, or throat and only cause some minor cold symptoms
• serious side effects could be: fever, lethargy, vomiting, and poor appetite
• diagnosed through spinal tap or blood test
• if infected, does not give you life long immunity

Dose your child run a risk for contracting HIB?

• Only 25 reported cases a year (thanks to the HIB vaccine), most in children under the age of 3
• It is serious. 5% die and 25% will have brain damage of some sort
• Most parents don’t take their child to the doctor until they have been ill for a while and test results can take up to two days- this is too late if the illness is very advanced

What is in the Vaccine? (There are 2 possible HIB vaccines)

• Both vaccines contain only certain portions of the disease germ. There is no way to catch the actual infection from this vaccine.
• ActHIB: sugar, tetanus toxoid complex, saline solution
• PedVaxHIB: sugar, saline solution, Neisseria protein complex, aluminum (225 micrograms) I will write a post either later today or tomorrow about aluminum in vaccines.

Side Effects

• Less that 5% of babies may have: fever, fussiness, redness, and swelling
• serious side effects that have been reported are: Guillain-Barre Syndrome and serious HIB infection (this is extremely rare)

Reasons to Get Vaccine

• meningitis and blood infections can be very serious
• continue HIB vaccines keep the virus from growing and the number of people from becoming ill from the HIB
• safest side effect profile of all vaccines
• ingredients are very pure compared to other vaccines
• if you travel outside the country, HIB is more common in other countries

Reasons some people might choose to not give the HIB vaccine to their child

• HIB disease remains very low (25 cased/year)
• breastfeed and do not attend day care help reduce the risk of contracting this illness

What did I decide?

I decide to go with the alternate vaccine schedule, which included giving this vaccine. I felt that because this vaccine has a low risk of side effects and a minimum amount of aluminum, that it was safe to give Cooper. He received his first does was when he was 3 months old. He did not have any side effects at all.

More information about the HIB vaccine

• http://www.chop.edu/consumer/jsp/division/generic.jsp?id=75725
• http://www.babycenter.com/0_the-hib-vaccine_1562.bc
• http://www.vaccineinformation.org/hib/qandavax.asp
• http://pediatrics.about.com/library/vis/bl_hib.htm

Please leave a comment and share with me what you decide to do for your child concerning the HIB vaccine. If you have any other information about the vaccine that I have not shared, please leave a comment! The more we are informed about each vaccine the better choices we can make for our children!

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Alternate Vaccine Schedule

There is so much controversy surrounding vaccines. Links to autism, seizures  disorders, and other immune difficulties have been thought to be linked to the effects of infant vaccinations. In my family, I have a cousin who is a non-verbal autistic. She had serious seizures that were linked to some of the vaccinations she was given as a tiny infant. She is twenty-one now, and I know that vaccines have changed, but it makes me very leery of giving vaccines to my son. I did some research before Cooper was born and stumbled across a book called The Vaccine Book. Between the information that was presented in the book, discussing vaccines with my step-sister (who is a doctor), and some research on-line, I decided to do an alternate vaccine schedule with Cooper (with some modifications of my own).
There are many reasons why we chose to go with an alternate vaccine schedule rather than the recommended schedule by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here are just a few:

• Family history of reactions could mean that Cooper could also have an adverse reaction
• Giving sometimes 5 vaccines in one visit seems a little much for such a young infant
• Aluminum in vaccines can cause nervous system toxicity because infants kidneys are not able to handle the amounts given in some vaccines or combination of vaccines. (I will write a post just on this topic at a later date)
• There are just some vaccines that I don’t feel he needs because they don’t propose such a high risk to Cooper, for example the Chicken Pox vaccine. I had the chicken pox naturally and did just fine!
• I wanted him to still have some vaccines as I felt they posed enough risk that I did not want to chance not giving them to him.
• He is also not in daycare and I am breastfeeding him (all help to reduce the risk of serious illness) so I felt like it was okay to space out the vaccines rather than cram them in to one visit.
• Mercury in vaccines is linked to autism (many of the vaccines have removed this so consult your doctors about the ingredients in each vaccine before giving it to your child).

I plan on writing a review about each vaccine that children in America are recommend to have by the American Academy of Pediatrics in separate posts. Below is the Recommended Vaccine Schedule outline by the AAP and the Alternate Vaccine Schedule outline by Dr. Sears. Please leave comments  how your family has decided to handle vaccines and why. I would love to start up a good dialogue about what everyone had decided to do with their children. I think that every family needs to evaluate their situation and choose what is right for them!

American Academy of Pediatrics Vaccine Schedule

• Birth Hep B
• 1 month Heb B
• 2 months HIB, Pc, DTaP, Rotavirus, Polio
• 4 months HIB, Pc, DTaP, Rotavirus, Polio
• 6 months HIB, Pc, DTaP, Rotavirus, Hep B, Flu
• 1 year MMR, Chickenpox, Hep A
• 18 months DTaP, Polio, Hep A, Flu
• 2 years Flu
• 3 years Flu
• 4 years Flu
• 5 years DTap, Polio, MMR, Flu, Chickenpox
• 12 years Tdap, Menigococcal, HPV (3 doses, girls only)

Dr. Sear’s Alternate Vaccine Schedule (p.236-237 The Vaccine Book) Vaccines in red, I choose to not give to Cooper

MMR is no longer avaliable in a seporated shot, as Dr. Sear’s has advised, Cooper will receive the combined MMR shot at age 4

• 2 months DTaP, Rotavirus
• 3 months Pc, HIB
• 4 months DTaP, Rotavirus
• 5 months PC, HIB
• 6 months DTaP, Rotavirus
• 7 months Pc, HIB
• 9 months Polio, Flu (2 Doses)
• 12 months  Polio
• 15 months Pc, HIB
• 18 months DTaP, Chickenpox
• 21 months Flu
• 2 years  Polio
• 2 years, 6 months Hep B, Hep A
• 3 years Heb B,  Flu
• 3 years, 6 months Hep B, Hep A
• 4 years DTaP, Polio, Flu, MMR
  
• 5 years Flu
• 6 years Chickenpox
• 12 years Tdap, HPV (girls only)
• 12 years, 2 months HPV (girls only)
• 13 years HPV (girls only), Meningococcal

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