I have three children, one daughter and two sons...

"I have three children, one daughter and two sons, my daughter being the eldest. When my daughter was born, we had no idea that there was even a choice with regards to vaccinating our new baby, let alone any knowledge of anything else at all to do with any of the baby vaccines. We just went along with whatever a health professional recommended we do, which is what everyone else seemed to do at the time. So my daughter received the baby vaccinations, all three doses, but when it came to the MMR we learned that there was some controversy surrounding it and its possible side-effects. This prompted me to do a little research about it, and I barely touched the surface with what I could find at the time, but what I found caused my husband and I to decide that we would still like to protect our daughter from these so-called dangerous diseases so we opted for the single vaccines, at great cost to my in-laws as we weren't able to pay for them. Half way through the programme of three separate shots I found out other things that made me stop in my tracks, and also fuelled my desire to keep on researching, to find out as much as I could about them. I bought a few books and spent a long time on the internet, and decided that what I found was enough for me to say no to the third and final one of the three, rubella. I found I really regretted giving her any of the immunisations at all having not known anything about them before having them administered to her. I breastfed her until 7 months, and she was only fed organic and completely natural foods for the first two years of her life, I checked every food packaging label for signs of unwanted, unhealthy and unpleasant ingredients but I never did this when about to vaccinate. I have spent years dealing with the guilt and wishing I'd not done it, but have realised that you can only do the best you can with what you know at the time, that was all I could do. I went on to have two boys who are completely vaccine-free, and I have no intention of letting a needle near them as long as I can. They have been very healthy, one is 6 and one is 4. My 4 year-old unfortunately inherited an allergic tendency from his father who suffered terribly with eczema as a baby and child, and went on to develop asthma, so I am really glad I haven't vaccinated him for that reason too. Apart from this he has been the healthiest of the three, rarely suffering from sickness bugs, only ever having a few short-lived colds, and a possible once a year fever lasting no more than a day or two. My 6 year old is much the same, but my daughter who is now 9 was different as a toddler. She suffered her first bad cold at 8 months of age, she went on to be one of these children whose nose is constantly running and I felt that although she didn't get ill very frequently, when she did she always seemed to suffer with it worse than the boys did. She is now a healthy 9 year old and seems fairly resistant except for one or two mild illnesses a year. The boys seem to go a long time without getting anything, none of them have ever had an ear or chest infection, the boys have never had to have an antibiotic and my daughter only once for impetigo. When I decided to stop vaccinating I began to use homoeopathy, and have done ever since. Homoeopathic medicine is our first port of call for any family complaint from the very minor to the more severe. I recently used homoeopathic medicine to clear up a very nasty skin infection that my 6 year old son developed after a fall and bad graze to the knee which got infected. The nurse we saw couldn't believe we'd cleared it up with no antibiotic. So all in all I am very glad that I have kept my children mostly free from this incredibly doubtful and inconclusive method of protection from illness. I fully believe in nurturing the immune system naturally and will continue to do so. I strive to feed my children a healthy, varied and balanced diet containing plenty of fruit and vegetables. This, together with homeopathy, herbal medicine, nutritional supplements and aromatherapy essential oils forms a fantastic way of ensuring family health without unnecessary toxic chemicals which are constantly being linked to ill health later in life. Please keep up the good work encouraging vaccine-free families to share their experiences."