Hope!

The past year has been difficult, to say the least.  My oldest son - my 13 year old with autism - continued to regress.  And regress.  And regress.  We spent lots of money to send him to a special private day school, which only led to more regression.  We pulled him out and put him in 6th grade at our local public middle school - and he continued in his regression.  And when our local move sent my son to a new public middle school, that was again (of course) another disaster.  In fact, that was the most memorable disaster, given that he was seriously beaten and almost stabbed (only was not because the aggressing boy was restrained just.in.time) on his second day at this school.

And that is not all.  In the past year, I lost two babies :(  My two babies - who were supposed to be The Pure Baby's (PB's) best friends - died :(  My first loss was at 7 weeks, and my second loss was at 13 weeks.  Both were traumatic of course, but my second loss was the.worst.experience of my life (and that really says a lot, as my life has not been easy).

I titled this post "Hope!", because despite all of the sadnesses and difficulties and horrors, I have great hope! :)  I now have incredible hope for my oldest son!!! :) :) :)  And I have wonderful hope for my next baby :) :) :)   And I will share all of this in a series of posts...

Vaccines, Brain Changes, and Autism

Researchers from both the University of Pittsburgh and Texas' Thoughtful House Center for Children have found that infant monkeys who receive the vaccine schedule used in the 1990s have amazingly similar brain changes to those seen in children with autism. 

Through use of scanning techniques that evaluated brain growth and function, the researchers were able to observe distinct differences in the brain development of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated animals. 

Through the entire study, vaccinated animals were found to have an increase in total brain volume.  Interestingly, this is also a common attribute of children with autism.  After the 12 month vaccines, two notable findings were made: (1) the amygdala, the area of the brain associated with emotional response, began to show abnormalities, and (2) extraordinary differences were seen in the brain scans of the vaccinated versus the non-vaccinated animals.

Additionally, the study found that animals vaccinated with hepatitis B on their first day of life had delayed acquisition of vital brain stem reflexes, when compared to non-vaccinated animals.

The findings were recently published in the journal Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis. 

Study Links Pesticides with Childhood ADHD

Just as I've been writing about The Feingold Diet, an interesting AP article by Carla K. Johnson appeared in my local newspaper.  A mainstream scientific study has found a link between pesticides and childhood ADHD.  The government health survey - based study looked at the one-time urine samples of 1139 children (ages 8 to 15) as well as interviews with the parents to determine the ADHD status of the children.

Although this link is not news to many parents, the study's mainstream backing is rare and is to be praised.

According to the article, experts say that research shows persuasive evidence that agricultural pesticides contribute to learning disorders.  Virginia Rauh of Columbia University says that the study should be taken seriously.

Maryse Bouchard of the University of Montreal says that people can limit pesticide exposure by eating organic produce.  A government report has found the highest concentrations of pesticides in three items:  frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, and celery. 

Yes, those are the frozen blueberries that are highly touted for their antioxidant properties.  So, there are many people eating non-organic frozen blueberries, in an effort to be healthy.  Instead, they are sadly loading their bodies with pesticides.

A 2008 Emory University study found that when children switched to organic produce, the levels of pesticides in their urine dropped to almost zero.  So, there is definitely hope.  I actually know of a mom of a child with autism who says that their most successful invention for their son has been making his diet 100% organic.

This kind of information linking pesticides to health problems is hard for some people to hear.  My dad worked in pesticide legislation for most of his career, and he just cannot accept information showing that pesticides may be harmful.  At the same time, I wonder if somehow I was negatively effected by my dad's pro-pesticide stance, possibly leading to at least part of why our oldest son is on the autism spectrum.

The Vaccine Schedule - Causing Skyrocketing Autism Rates Since 1989

In 1989, a fully vaccinated five year old had received a total of eleven vaccination injections, consisting of three different vaccines.

In 2010, the CDC and AAP recommended vaccination schedule requires five year old children to receive 36 vaccination injections, consisting of eleven different vaccines.

Since 1989, the vaccination schedule has acquired eight new vaccines and 25 additional injections of vaccinations.

Want to know what happened after 1989?  Think Hillary.  Think Hillarycare.  And one must not forget to Think Autism. 

Yes, autism rates have skyrocketed since 1989.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1980 showed a California autism rate of 1 in 2272.  In 1994, the California autism rate had drastically risen to 1 in 480.

According to the CDC, the US 2007 autism rate was 1 in 150 while the US 2009 autism rate was 1 in 110.

Is anyone getting concerned?

Ear Infections: A Normal Part of Childhood?

We know a nine-year-old boy who just got his fourth set of ear tubes.  When I heard he was going in for his fourth surgical implantation of ear tubes, I was a bit shocked and amazed.  That is just a lot of surgeries, anesthesia, and ear tubes for a young boy!  And what it the reason for all of the ear tubes?  He has repeated ear infections that are pretty significant.

This got me thinking about the apparent ear infection epidemic among children.  Ear infections are always such a hot topic among moms of young children.  It seems that pretty much all kids are getting repeated ear infections and a good amount of children are getting surgical implantation of ear tubes.

So why is this happening?  Why so many ear infections?  Well, it is probably not what you would expect.  According to Richard Moskowitz, M.D., vaccinations are the cause of the great ear infection epidemic.  Vaccination causes mucosal immunity to be weak, often leading to ear infections in children.  Otitis Media (ear infection) is the buildup of water in the ear, which often requires tubes for drainage.  Amazingly, the particular strain of Otitis Media that is running rampant today was not known until the late 1940s and early 1950s.  And guess what big event happened in the 1940s?  That was when the massive vaccination programs began in the United States.   

And we've got more startling information about ear infections.  At least half of all American children have had Otitis Media by their first birthday.  More than 40% of kids get repeated ear infections by age 6.  Otitis Media accounts for 26 million visits to physicians each year.  About 1 million children have tubes implanted into their ears each year.

And, there is even more to the story.  Otitis Media is almost always treated with antibiotics.  Antibiotics lead to yeast and gastrointestinal dysbiosis.   And, what issues do almost all children with autism have?  Yes, that would be yeast and gastrointestinal dysbiosis.  So, there seems to be a definite antibiotic = autism connection.  That will be a topic for another day...

The Pure Baby - What Does That Mean? (PART ONE)

It took me quite a while to come up with the “perfect” name for my blog.  I would come up with “a great idea” but soon after would determine it was not so great after all – and so on.  Finally, in a moment of “brilliance”, I found the name – THE PURE BABY.

The Pure Baby, you see, is one of the names that I have for our baby.  Usually, I will call him “The Pure Baby” in moments that we see him doing something that we deem extraordinary and wonderful :)  At those times, I realize that he is the amazing little baby that he is, because we have kept him pure.

OUR FIRST BABY (pictured at left)

After we brought our first baby home from the hospital, I felt so overwhelmed with this great responsibility that had been given to us.  I was at home alone with my new baby all day long, while my husband worked.  It was a bit scary.  I would think to myself that this was our “practice baby”.  I kept thinking that this baby would be a learning experience, and I hoped that we would not make many mistakes.

Sadly, we made a huge mistake with our first baby.  I feel so responsible for this, and I hold an incredible amount of regret and guilt.  This mistake changed our family and our lives forever.  This mistake has brought great pain to us, and this mistake has cost us a good amount of money.  The behaviors and aggression resulting from this mistake have even alienated us from friends and family. 

This horrible mistake was vaccination.  Our first baby received his first mercury-laden vaccination on his first day of life.  Hepatitis B.  Apparently, newborn babies are carrying the risk factors for that.  HA.  A bunch of nonsense.  I had not educated myself about vaccinations.  I just assumed that if a doctor said it was good, it must be.  After all, Americans are supposed to worship the almighty doctors, right?  At the same time, I had been exposed to a bit of anti-vaccination information during my first baby’s pregnancy.  I had checked out from the library, a bunch of Mothering Magazine issues.  In at least one, I discovered an article stating that vaccinations do more harm than good.  Additionally, my chiropractor put out a newsletter in which she wrote of vaccine dangers, including real live stories of vaccine-injured people.  So you see, even though I was exposed to some anti-vaccination information, I did not listen.  I did not learn.  I let our baby be vaccinated.  I let him be vaccinated ever so frequently during his first couple of years.  I allowed our baby to be mercury poisoned and vaccine-injured.  I let our baby develop autism.

Yes, I said develop autism.  Our baby was PERFECT when he was born.  He was 9 pounds, 10 ounces of beautiful baby boy.  He was alert and a very enthusiastic breast feeder from the moment of his birth.  Our baby was not born with autism.  Our baby was born PERFECT.  Our baby’s perfection was destroyed by the intense series of mercury-containing vaccinations that he received, which so incredibly began before he was even a day old.

When our first baby was five months old, I began attending La Leche League meetings.  At La Leche League, there were a good number of non-vaccinating moms.  I’d never met moms like that before, and at first, I thought they were a little weird (to not vaccinate their babies).  But, in time, I began to listen.  I also subscribed to Mothering Magazine.  Between what I learned from my La Leche League friends and Mothering Magazine, I started to question vaccination – a little.  I decided that I wanted to separate our baby’s MMR vaccine into the three separate ingredients – Measles, Mumps, and Rubella.  I talked to our pediatrician about this.  He said it was not necessary and that there was no science behind it, but he agreed to administer the vaccines separately if we spaced them no more than a month apart.

When our first baby was 3 ½ years old, we moved to a new state for my husband’s new job.  There, we found a wonderful developmental pediatrician who was associated with a major children’s hospital.  She evaluated our son and made two life-changing recommendations.  First, she said that our son would likely benefit tremendously from The Feingold Diet .  I told her that I had previously tried to do a Feingold-like diet with our son, taking out all of the artificial ingredients and buying all of his food at Whole Foods Market.  Our doctor said this was not enough.  She said that The Feingold Diet cannot be done properly without first buying the materials from The Feingold Association.  She said that we needed to buy those materials right away.  Then, she said that I should take The Feingold Foodlist book with me to all of the local grocery stores and code the book according to what I could buy at each store.  Our doctor’s second suggestion was to take our son to a particular DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor that she believed would be very helpful to us.

We followed her advice.  With The Feingold Diet, our son’s behavior improved dramatically.  He lost much of his aggression!  After a six-month wait for our appointment with the DAN! doctor, we were able to start Biomedical Treatment and begin seeing additional gains in our son!    Wow, it was just all so amazing!  We were and are so very thankful for our wonderful developmental pediatrician who put our son on the road to recovery!  She was the major turning point in our son’s life and ours.

As I mentioned already, our son’s autism has alienated us from friends and family.  It seems that they have avoided us because they prefer to not experience life with our first child.  It is not easy.  I know.  His first birthday party was a total disaster.  A good number of his little friends declined our invitation.  Our son dominated the friends that did attend, taking toys away and pushing them down.  By his second birthday, our playgroup “friends” told us that we were no longer welcome.  At age three, he was discharged from his first nursery school.  When we moved to a new state at age three and a half, he qualified for 45 hours per week of state-provided therapy.  Our evaluator said that he was the first child that she had found who qualified for such a great number of therapy hours.  At age four, our son was discharged from two more nursery schools, again due to anti-social behaviors.

We have few visitors to our home.  Family tends to stay away, even after the birth of The Pure Baby.  I think that our relatives find our first son to be too exhausting and just too much overall.  Our son has made tremendous gains through both The Feingold Diet and DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) Biomedical Treatment.  His aggression and “behaviors” have decreased into a shadow of what they once were.  Even so, he is not as delightful as a “neuro-typical” (normal) child.  He tends to be “clingy” and demands attention.  He wants his relatives to play with him and to hold hands with him.  He has an intense need to be loved.

Chicago is the Place for Us!

 I've been spending some time looking at the website of Homefirst in Chicago.  Wow!  I am amazed!  I had heard of Dr. Mayer Eisenstein but was not aware of the extent of his greatness.  I've never even been to Chicago, but I want to move there so that our family can be part of Dr. Eisenstein's incredible medical practice!

What is so special about Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, you may ask?  Well, he appears to be an extreme rarity in the world of doctors.  According to Dr. Eisenstein, all vaccines cause neurological damage, and he therefore does not administer vaccines in his Homefirst practice.  And guess what?  None of his (non-vaccinated) patients have autism!  Is anyone noticing this clear connection between no vaccinations and no autism?  It sounds just like the Amish, as the Amish also carry these two unusual and distinguishing traits.  Some skeptics may write off the Amish "phenomenon" as genetic, but can they write off the Homefirst patient base - which clearly has no genetic connection?  I think not!

Additionally, Dr. Eisenstein and his team of doctors at Homefirst are homebirth doctors!  You read that right.  These doctors actually come to your house, to provide any needed assistance, while you birth your baby your way.  You get crunchy midwife-like care, along with the extra expertise a doctor may have :) 

So now I have to convince my husband that we need to move to Chicago!  We likely will be moving somewhere in the next year or two, so I've got to get the focus onto Chicago!  I'm planning to have a homebirth when The Pure Baby has a new baby brother or sister, and I think my husband's comfort level would go way up if we had a doctor on hand. 

Being part of a non-vaccinating medical practice is extremely appealing and comforting to me.  Where we live now, it is impossible to have a pediatrician for a non-vaccinated child.  Even though we live in a major city, we have to drive two hours to see my children's family practitioner.  Two hours!  He is the only one in the area who would take them on as patients.  All of the local pediatricians are apparently too scared, having likely been subjected to intimidation by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Even if these pediatricians do believe that vaccines are harmful, they are too scared to say so.  And, they are additionally too scared to have non-vaccinated children in their patient base.  On the other hand, Dr. Eisenstein fearlessly proclaims that vaccines are harmful, and makes a safe medical home for non-vaccinating families. 

Would You Like a Shot of Tylenol with that Shot?

When my two older children were babies, I spent plenty of time in the pediatrician's waiting room.  During my visits there, I often witnessed the Tylenol phenomenon.  A great number of moms would carry Tylenol Infants' Drops in the diaper bag and give the babies a shot of Tylenol just prior to being seen by the pediatrician for a real shot (or 2 or 3 or 4!) of vaccine(s).

Why the shot of Tylenol?  Well, I think that is what pediatricians must be saying is "the right thing to do," in order to help the baby avoid pain during the vaccine shots.  At the same time, research is showing that the use of Tylenol to decrease the pain of the vaccine shot is actually, in many cases, causing a lifetime of pain for the child (and of course, the child's family).  What is happening here?  Tylenol is preventing the child's body from detoxifying from the vaccine.  You see, Tylenol decreases glutathione.  Glutathione is the body's great detoxifier.  With a good supply of glutathione, the body is able to eliminate toxicities (such as those associated with vaccines).  With a poor supply of glutathione, the body sadly retains the toxicities.  And guess what is happening?  Children who are unable to detoxify from vaccines are developing AUTISM.

Sure, there are many children who took both a shot of Tylenol and and a shot of vaccine - and did not develop autism.  Some children have excellent detoxifying capabilites that are good enough to protect them, even when taking Tylenol.  Unfortunately, it is not possible to identify whether a child is a good detoxifier, and parents therefore must gamble with their child when giving a vaccine.  Even if it seems that the child has previously been able to detoxify, that can quickly change, due to the immense quantity of vaccinations.  Additionally, there are also many children today who do not have autism but are clearly functioning at a lower than optimal level.  In addition to skyrocketing autism rates, we also have a great increase in ADD, ADHD, Developmental Language Disorder, ODD, learning disabilities, and more.

The Pure Baby supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield

DrThe Pure Baby family supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his extensive efforts to help children with autism spectrum disorders.

In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a daring hypothesis in the Lancet, showing clinical evidence of an association between the MMR vaccine, autism, and bowel disease.  That kind of thinking brings great unhappiness and discomfort to those in both the pharmaceutical and medical industries, thus leading to efforts to discredit the work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield.