Be Yourself - Pregnancy Advice

After announcing I was pregnant with my first child I realized that I must be horrible at being pregnant. My doctor thought everything was going great, but the world in general seemed to disagree. People I knew and people I didn't overwhelmed me with a list of things I needed to do and things I needed to stop doing. “You need to read this book.” “You need to stop wearing heels.” “You need to keep a journal.” “You need to stop eating spicy food.” “ You need to take a birthing class.” “You need to stop exercising.” The list goes on and on. I wasn't doing the things everyone seemed to think was supposed to be doing. The worst part was the attitude I got if I dared to mention I wasn't going to be following the suggestion. People got mad. They seemed to feel that I was doing them some harm by not being pregnant the way they thought I should be. I heard story after story of why I should do this or shouldn't do that. When did all these people become an expert on my life.

I didn't read the books. What growing up on a farm didn't teach about what to expect, my nursing degree did. I didn't take a class. I read up on the principles behind the different birthing methods and talked to a close friend, my mother, and my nurse. We all agreed that I probably wouldn't get that much out of the classes. Being a life long student of various martial arts and yoga, I already understood the concepts. Why waste the money and even more importantly my time. I have never kept a journal and I was too busy with baby planning to start. I kept eating spicy food, wearing my heels, and kept my exercise routine with a little modification. Of course I talked to my physician about anything that might be dangerous, like the exercise. Instead of doing all the things people thought I needed to be doing, I did what fit my life. My pregnancy was great. The baby was born healthy after a brief four hours of labor. Everything was fine. Now, I am going to ignore most of the advice on how to raise my son. I am sure he will turn out great, even if I let him stay up late of watch T.V.

Necole Ivey

Are the MMR vaccine links to autism unfounded

When making a decision you need to look at all the evidence. From scientific experiments to empirical observation. Often times you find the evidence is very conflicting. On the issue of the link between autism and the MMR vaccine we fortunately do not find such conflict. The body of evidence shows that there is not a link between the two. I wouldn't expect you to take my word on such an important issue. So, please follow me through experiments and the observations.

Let's start at the beginning of the controversy. A report in the British medical journal Lancet by Dr. Andrew Wakefield on February 28th 1998. The report was on a study conducted by Dr. Wakefield and twelve other practitioners. The study was conducted on twelve children with developmental disorders accompanied by gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea. The interpretation of the results as listed by the researchers was “ We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers.” In other words no link had been proven.

So, why all the controversy? Because before the paper was published Dr. Wakefield went to the media with a statements warning against the vaccine. He warned that children had drastic behavior changes shortly after receiving the vaccine. Of the twelve children nine has autism. Of the children diagnosed with autism seven had parents that associated the onset of the child’s symptoms with receiving the vaccine. Please note that the link between the symptoms and the vaccine was given by the parents alone. The small amount of evidence was enough for Dr. Wakefield to speak out against the combination vaccine. Going so far as to call for the  vaccines suspension until more research could be done. I would like to mention that Dr. Wakefield never said that his study had proven a link, he merely stated that more research needed to be done. So that is the beginning of the controversy, but it gets better.

In 2004 Wakefield was accused of a conflict of interest. This conflict of interest allegation is based of a proposed lawsuit against the manufactures of the vaccine. Documents arose that Royal Free Hospital was paid by UK's Legal Aid Board to conduct the study. Furthering the conflict of interest Dr. Wakefield himself received money from the lawyers that he did not disclose. This of course does lead to a lessening of Dr. Wakefield's credibility. A bigger blow to the credibility of the research was that some of the parents of the children in the study were recruited by the lawyers. 
 
This allegation lead to numerous responses. The immediate response to this was for the Lancet to publish a retraction. They listed a very simple and polite reason. The article would never had been publish based on the grounds of bias if all the information had been presented to them. The twelve other researchers also quickly responded by making statements that the study had never suggested a causal link between autism and MMR. Finally the UK General Medical Council responded by examining Dr. Wakefield and two colleagues on charges including the conflict of interest issues, conducting test on children without pediatric qualifications or approval, and conducting test on children contrary to the child's needs and without medical history or symptoms to support the test. These investigations began in July of 2007. On January 28^th of 2010 the Council ruled against Wakefield. On May 24^th of the same year Dr.Wakefield's license to practice in the UK was revoked. 
 
So the study that started the scare was found to be biased and fraudulent. Well, more correctly, the doctor that started the scare was found to be fraudulent. As mentioned before the study never said there was a link between the vaccine and autism. Subsequent test also could not find any link. That should have been the end of the story right. If it was you wouldn't be reading this no would you.

Dr.Wakefield still has adamant supporters that believe that he was wrongly persecuted by a corrupt medical establishment. Even if this is the case Dr.Wakefield's study never showed a link. The supporters of this belief do not need the research study however, they have observation.

There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that MMR can cause Autism. However observation is powerful and science is not always right. I have included a link to Autismspeaks.org where you can see a list of many forum post related to MMR. These are not scientific research papers, just information from parents with Autistic children. I know that the decision about vaccinations is difficult. It has become a hot button issue and you fell like no matter what you do you are not making the right choice for your child. I hope knowing how all of this got started and seeing the reports yourself will help your choice. I also want to leave you with the most important thing I found while researching this topic. Many parents with Autistic children do not regret the decision to vaccinate for one reason, their child is living with Autism, but may have died if not vaccinated.

1998 Lancet Article 
Actual Research Data 
Autism Speaks