There have been some cases of whooping cough in my area. My son is 1 year old and has had a runny nose for about 2 weeks. He coughs sometimes, maybe 3-4 times a day. Otherwise he is fine, so I haven't taken him to the doctor. He is not vaccinated, so I'm a little nervous. How serious is whopping cough in a 1 year old? I read it's only life-threatening in babies under 6 months. I hate this!!
When I hear about outbreaks nearby, I get nervous too. I think the cough is very distinct and the coughing spells can go on a long, long time. My sister, brother, and I all had it one summer when we were young. It was the longest summer of my mom's life, but we did not go to the doctor and were all okay. I know how you are feeling though and it's so hard. I feel better about my decision to not vaccinate, but there's always the what if my kid gets it and it becomes serious. I hate this too!!!
its not serious at all. :] if he does start getting the coughing fits, just give him extra love, honey to soothe his throat, tea, lots of sleep, etc etc.
with pertussis, "virtually all cases of death are in infants 4 months and younger"..info straight from the cdc. look up the cdc's pink book on pertussis on their website!
there have been lots of cases in my state, some as close as the next town over. i take my daughter to work with me and one of my clients has kids that go to a school that had a few confirmed cases. she hasnt gotten sick yet! shes 7 months old. and im not worried. so you shouldnt be, either! besides, its not like a vaccine would have even helped.. with that outbreak in cali, i think most of them were actually vaccinated..
theres also evidence that claims the pertussis part of the vaccine doesnt work at all.
From your explanation it doesn't sound like he has whooping cough. I found the same statistic on the risk for infants. Go to mercola.com and look up "Dispelling Vaccination Myths." The author sites two breakouts of pertussis in 1986 and 1993 where 90% and 72% respectively of those who got whooping cough were fully vaccinated, so vaccinating didn't help protect these kids. Also search whooping cough on mercola's site. There are several articles about it so you can learn more about the risks of the vaccine vs. risk of injury or death from the disease. I would also check out books: Vaccinations - A Thoughtful Parent's Guide by Aviva Jill Romm or What your Doctor may not Tell you about Children's Vaccinations by Stephanie Cave. I was googling it, and every website that came up had all kinds of scary statistics. We have to educate ourselves and we have to decide who we trust for our information because statistics can be manipulated to make it seem better or worse depending on the author's goal. I trust people like Dr. Mercola because he's not gaining anything financially by telling us not to vaccinate, and he sights his sources in his articles. His focus is on helping people make health choices that work naturally with our bodies. Vaccines are not natural. Stephanie Cave's book is a balanced look at vaccines, not one sided. I haven't read the other one yet, but I found good reviews on it.
Head Start turned us away. Question
- starinmysky
on Feb. 13, 2012 at 7:49 PM