This week in my childbirth preparation class I learned that pretty soon, we don’t want the baby to be “sunny-side up.” In other words, if he’s facing out towards the world, I could have a very painful “back labor” experience.
Said teacher informed us that Americans have the highest rate of back labor in the world. That is because we sit leaning back so much. The head and butt are the heaviest baby parts, and so, when Mama is a few degrees short of supine, the little one swings round to the back and faces out.
At 33 weeks, you’re telling me I have to stop lounging???
Okay. For a day, I honestly tried. But it so isn’t happening.
This morning, I asked my yoga teacher about it. She said she’d heard of this idea, but that in her experience, it isn’t true. More just one of those tidbits that gets passed along, like The Sushi Fear.
(By the by, I keep seeing people — even famous nutritionist people in big fancy newspapers — citing toxoplasmosis as a risk factor in eating sushi, and yet, scientifically, that doesn’t match up with anything else I’ve read on the parasite. And because of my scare, I have read a lot.)
In the meantime, I’m trying to understand why some people vaccinate their children and some don’t and still others do but spread them out over a longer period of time. I went to a “brown bag lunch” with one of the pediatricians I interviewed, but all she said was that I need to read up on it and decide for myself. (I was hoping for a more definitive answer.) Although she did go through the list of vaccines and say something about how useful each one is — except for Polio, which has been eradicated in this country, but could be trouble if you travel (or one of those other foreign infected types travels here?).
She suggested I consult the Berkeley Parents Network on the subject.
The vaccination debate is a difficult one. My personal experience is, if you want the “pro” side, ask your pediatrician. If you want the “con” side, ask your chiropractor. They will both have compelling information, backed by studies. At least that is how it worked for me.
All three of my boys are current on their shots, but I may do further research this time. There are definite risk (you will get a full sheet on side effects of each shot every time you get it). We have a family friend whose son almost died after he had a bad reaction to the pertussis shot. There are also concerns about the fact that many contain small amounts of mercury. Some people believe that this is related to the huge increase in autism (I grew up knowing one autistic kid, period–today, in my congregation alone, I’m aware of at least three kids who are diagnosed as autistic, and there are others who may be “on the spectrum”). People who spread the shots out do it to try and limit the levels of mercury that their children receive at once. It really is a tough issue. Like I said, my kids have been getting the “necessary” shots (I refuse to do the flu shot, and I won’t let them do the HepB shot on my newborns–they really aren’t at risk for something that is mostly a sexually transmitted disease), but I worry every time I do it. Good luck with making your decisions.
I think they’ve phased out thimerisol (mercury) as of about five years ago; however flu shots may still have them. Personally I don’t bother with flu shots for self or children; every year they have to come up with a new formula and guess which flu might be virulent for the coming year, and every year there’s some new strain that the current flu shot doesn’t really fight.
My goal is to keep the kids’ immune systems supported and let nature do the rest. They need to build up immunities.
Definitely you can ask to spread shots out or delay them if you don’t want to bombard baby right away. Talk to your pediatrician about which ones are really crucial right now (whooping cough) and which ones can wait (that Hepatitis shot)