Saturday, February 19, 2005

His 8 week visit

Well, we had our visit with the pediatrician for his 8 week check up.
My husband is terribly concerned about the vaccinations and this was a source of contention between us. However, the fear of an immunized and possibly cranky baby did not even end up coming to light (more a little later in post).

The basics:
Josef weighs 11 pounds and 6 ounces (5.2 kilos)
Josef is 22 inches tall (0.56 meters)
His weight for actual age puts him in the 50th percentile and the height is in the 25th percentile on the growth chart. His weight for length is in the 50th percentile.

I do not remember what his head circumference was, but that too fell with in normal limits. I consider him way above the given percentiles since he really should only be about three weeks old right now.

OK, so... He did not end up getting his immunizations.
NOT because we disagree with the concept. I am very PRO immunizations... Chris however was more skeptical after a friend called and made the claims about autism and the MMR (Ironically, an eight week old doesn't get the MMR). Haphazard research into the link between autism and immunizations can do terrible things. But, I guess that is what happens in a country where these diseases are not seen on a regular basis.

Places to go for more information:
http://www.vaccines.com/forparents.htm
http://whyimmunize.org/expert2.html#3
http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/
http://www.immunizationinfo.org/parents/index.cfm

I will say that if I consider the body to be a process of nature then immunizations are not "normal", but as I was discussing with my mother the other day... Neither is our global population rate that, with the help of modern medicine (which BTW includes immunizations) has reached such high numbers. Nothing about our preservative full life in Westernized nations is normal anymore. Without modern medicine Josef would not even have been here, he would have died because we could not have helped him transition through the transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN)

So, I will now step off the soapbox and tell you why he did not get his shots. It seems that Josef still has jaundice, albeit "mild jaundice". So they drew a bunch of blood and we shall see what is up with his liver and red blood cells and keep our fingers crossed that it is just because of his being breast fed (even though it may mean he has to go on formula for a couple of days [which I really can't understand, other than to maybe make sure that it is caused by breast milk ]).



cute feet. Posted by Hello

4 comments:

D said...

I still remember how i met Josef. I met him randomly on blogspot. His mummy describing her journey carrying him.

I fell in love with the glow-worm pics...
I was Hooked.
and till now, this website is in My Favourites!

:) have a fantastic day!

Blair said...

I love those pictures of my biliblanket boy!

Nettie said...

Hope the jaundice clears up soon!

Jordana said...

I hope Josef's jaundice doesn't stick around much longer. I'm very much in favor of immunizations too.