Unsolicited Advice...

Recently I learned that the only thing that will cause more people to give you advice than walking around with a baby/child, is walking around with a puppy.

Not that I do not appreciate the help, and sometimes the suggestions are actually quite useful; however, sometimes I just want to walk my dog; and thanks, but no thank you, I do not need you to teach him to sit/come/stay/down and even once swim....

Getting all this advice reminded me how easy it is to be influenced by other people, and how easy it is to start believing in certain things, like not vaccinating your children.

I admit, for one minute of my life I considered changing my child's vaccination schedule (I was never not going to vaccinate, I just considered waiting until she was bigger). I remembered this because some nice person told me all about when to neuter my puppy and to look up the information online.

Just like when my little one was small, I was once again completely sleep deprived, and when that happens, everything sounds slightly reasonable to me....

So I went home and looked up the studies regarding when to neuter my puppy. The science is actually a bit controversial. Yes there is some evidence that suggests you can reduce the chances of certain cancers, diseases, and problems if you neuter or spay later (if at all), however you increase the chances of other types of cancers, diseases and problems if you wait.

So I asked my vet about this during the pup's check up. I figured my vet spent years and probably lots of money going to vet school to learn about this sort of thing, while I spent maybe an hour on the internet... she would probably be a good person to ask. What she told me was it doesn't hurt to wait, but if my pup's behaviour changes, or other dogs are getting very aggressive with him, maybe it is time.

I know this had very little to do with the choice to vaccinate or not, but the situations were sort of similar. Back then, I was very much sleep deprived when I heard from somewhere about vaccines increasing the chances of autism. So I did what I usually do and looked on the internet (by the way, my uncle is a doctor and he repeatedly tells people to stop looking for medical advice on the internet, Dr. Google may convince you that you have ebola when you may just be suffering from seasonal allergies...).

Anyway, there they were on my screen, articles after articles on how vaccines were bad. Then being the suspicious person that I am I looked some more. For one thing I learned the biggest advocate for this movement (at that time) was Jenny McCarthy. Now... I am willing to take fashion and maybe beauty advice from celebrities, but I definitely draw the line at medical advice. So the more I looked - which really was probably me hitting page 2 on my google search - the more I learned about the methodology flaws, and other controversy over the paper where this whole vaccine-autism thing began. But the most important thing that I found was most international medical associations clearly state that vaccines do not cause autism (I said most because I never bothered looking them all up). So yes, my little one got vaccinated on schedule.

People mean well, but you know what they say about good intentions... I am sure the people who stop me and offer me suggestions on how to train my dog is only trying to help. And I have no doubt that people, including Jenny McCarthy who tell you not to vaccinate your children do not actually want your kids to get polio, diphtheria and other horrid diseases.

What I learned back when my little one was a baby, and was reminded about now, is that, it is important to listen to people, but a little scepticism is not a bad thing. And, always check where your information comes from. Google is great at finding information, but so far, not so great as to filtering truth from fiction... that I still need my sleepy brain to do.