It has been a whole year since I have posted on this site but I have been posting on my other blog sites. I come back here to tell you I am 38 weeks pregnant and getting ready to birth and breastfeed for the sixth time. I feel great. My husband is anxious for the babies arrival and I feel like a watched kettle but I am enjoying this extra time. With the baby still inside me I know it is quieter and easier than it will be a week from now! I am drinking lots of hot chocolate and taking short walks (I waddle very slowly).

I just had Zoe get her MMR vaccine and while at the doctors office we started to talk about a book by Ben Elton called "Blind Faith". He is a British comedian and writer and he is always very relevant. In the UK there has been a lot of controversy over vaccines in recent years. But what people tend to forget is that prior to vaccines childhood illness had huge mortality and morbidity. We are very lucky today we never give a thought to our healthy babies living past five years old. But not so very long ago this was a huge worry for all families alike. Without vaccines we had no protection against illness like tetanus, of which the spores are everywhere in the ground, and polio also endemic. Personally I am very greatful for vaccines and am going to take advantage of medical advances to ensure the health of my children.

Having said this not all vaccines are the same in that each one is targeted at a different disease and each disease is very different. So if the disease itself does not threaten the well being of our children then it is truely optional. Chicken pox vaccine was recently introduced but the risk benefit of the vaccine is not the same as that for polio. All five of my children got the disease not the vaccine over christmas this year and none of them will even remember the incident. I am glad because now they are not at risk of getting chicken pox as adults when it has a much longer coarse. The vaccine does wear out and so even if vaccinated you could get the disease as an adult. Not many people realise that the vaccine is mainly offered so that parents don't have to take time off work to be with a sick child if that is not an issue for you feel free to decline the chicken pox vaccine for your child.

Yes the decision to vaccine is not easy but maybe we should break it down a little more and say to ourselves which disease do I need to protect my children against and how?