Like many of us, the more you learn about vaccines the more you run up against the perplexing question: To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate. Like me, you may have decided to vaccinate but not on schedule and not multiple vaccines at one time.
Now that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are combined into one shot, the MMR vaccine, avoiding those mega doses of vaccinations in one visit is a little harder. With a little ingenuity however, you can have the shot for each disease administered separately.
Dr. Bob Sears, son of the well known parenting expert, “Dr. Sears,” (Dr. Bob is the author of The Vaccine Book in the Sears Parenting Library Series) has some recommendations if you choose to go this route.
- Go to a vaccine clinic at a large university hospital.
- Go to a travel clinic where people usually go to get unusual travel vaccines prior to international travel. Some of these carry the separate M, M, and R.
- Ask your doctor to write you a prescription for each shot and try to get it filled through a pharmacy. You would bring the shot back to your doctor’s office (making sure you keep it a refrigerator temperature 36 to 46 degrees F or 2 to 8 degrees Celsius) for the nurse to administer.
- Ask for a prescription, but get it filled through an online medical supply company or online pharmacy. They can ship it directly to your doctor’s office (shipping isn’t cheap though). One such company that I know of is American Medicine, Inc. in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You can find them on Google.
- Check out our Vaccine-Friendly Doctor’s list to see if there’s anyone within driving distance for you. They typically would need you to become a patient and get checkups there in order to provide you with vaccines.
- If you can’t find the separate shots anywhere, ask your doctor to start a list of like-minded patients and just skip the full MMR for now. Chances are over the next year or two the list will grow to include 10 patients. Delaying your baby’s protection for a year wouldn’t be too risky since the diseases are very rare.
As the connection between vaccines and a host of illnesses, including asthma and autism remains fuzzy, parents should continue exercising caution in vaccinating their children. It’s nice to know there are some options.
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Wow – those are great suggestions for keeping everyone happy. I didn’t know you could get separate shots for the MMR.
Measles, mumps, and rubella are not generally serious diseases, unless one gets them during or after puberty. This knowledge is why we chose not to get MMR or M, M, and R.
It is my understanding that these diseases are especially dangerous to unborn fetuses, particularly in the first trimester. For public health reasons to protect the unborn, these are required. I think it would be much more logical to educate women, especially since most MMR vaccines wear off when you of childbearing age. This happened to me, so I was not protected during my pregnancy, as you can’t get the vaccine while pregnant. Since I am a teacher, I may have chose to get vaccinated before I chose to become pregnant if I would have known.