My baby is due his vaccines next week and honestly I’m still torn. I’m not anti-vax at all, but the thought of putting so many things into his little body at once makes me anxious. I kept seeing posts saying the ingredients are “toxic” or “unnatural,” so I went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to understand what’s actually in them.
One thing that has always stuck with me is when my younger sister got vaccinated. I was 22 at the time, and she just seemed really “off” afterward, like the light had gone out of her. She’s super bright, wonderful, and healthy now, but that memory has always stayed with me and made me question vaccines
Once I looked everything up properly, it all sounded a lot less scary:
Aluminium – tiny amounts, actually less than what babies get from breast milk or formula.
Formaldehyde – our bodies make way more naturally than the tiny trace that might be left in a vaccine.
Thimerosal/mercury – not even in most baby vaccines anymore, and the type it used to contain is cleared quickly by the body.
Polysorbate 80 – also in foods like ice cream and yoghurt.
HEK-293 / WI-38 / MRC-5 – old lab-grown cell lines used in the process, not actual cells in the final vaccine.
Antibiotics – tiny leftovers used to prevent contamination while they’re made.
2-phenoxyethanol – the same preservative that’s in baby wipes and creams.
Salts and sugars – literally the same kind we use every day.
And honestly, it helped me remember that dose really matters. Even things we need to survive can be dangerous in huge amounts, like salt. We need sodium, but too much at once could be deadly. Vaccines only use super small, controlled amounts of these ingredients.
I’m just trying to find the actual research people keep talking about instead of the scary comments, because I want to make the best decision for my baby without getting swept up by it all….