Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Doctor, doctor


Today Theodore went to the doctor for his 1 month check up. We switched some time ago from a pediatrician to a family practice doctor. The two doctors are so completely different. Here is a previous post about how it was taking baby Abe to the doctor.
At this visit with Theodore, the doctor did not ask me one single question about carseats, or smoking, or guns, or smoke/carbon monoxide detectors, or alone time with my husband, or sleep positions, or feedings, or dirty diapers. And he did not give me an infant care sheet.

Rather, he told me an interesting thing about the company that makes vaccines, Merck. Apparently they have some sort of monopoly on making the vaccines, so no one else can, and they stopped making the mumps vaccine. You can still get the MMR vaccine, which is a combination of measles, mumps and rubella. This doctor would prefer to give the vaccines separately since he feels it would lower the threat of autism. His son is autistic so he feels very strongly about this. This is interesting because at our old doctor there were articles posted in each exam room stating that there is no link between vaccines and autism and parents should not be afraid of vaccines. I have never felt that strongly one way or the other, but the doctors opinions are notably different.