Doctors or Parents: Who Do You Trust More?

In the past, our Momversation panelists have discussed the concern over vaccines (and the subsequent reversal of the infamous MMR innoculation/Autism link). But some parents (including famous ones like Jenny McCarthy) are still convinced that vaccines can cause the disorder, especially considering the anecdotal evidence. Which got us wondering, who do you most rely on for medical advice: doctors or other parents?

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SilverXeno
2 yearss ago

So do you think that doctor you ignored wasted 8 years? Parents know THEIR children. Even if I don't understand anything about neurons or synapses...it doesn't mean I haven't still watched my child from the moment they were born. A doctor (or dentist) may go to school to learn things...but the same information you learned is available to lay people. I can look up medicine journal articles just like a doctor does. And when I don't understand everything in it, I can find something somewhere that will explain it to me. I might not have gone to school for any great length of time, but I sure know how to find out what I need to know. My youngest was exclusively breastfed from birth, and stopped taking a bottle (I pumped so her dad could feed her) at 4 months. When I tried to start solids at 6 months and she refused them all, the pediatrician suggested I take her to a feeding therapist. I couldn't afford a feeding therapist. Hell, right until he suggested it, I didn't know you could get therapy for feeding. I mentioned the problem to a friend who runs an in-home daycare. She said, "Yeah, but isn't there a big age range for trying solids? Why don't you just wait...unless you're really worried about her." I wasn't worried, she was nursing just fine. So I did wait. And when my daughter was 9 months old she voluntary wanted food. (I didn't offer it, I was eating and she reached up to my fork and tried to take my food.) When I let her have a few bites of my food, she seemed okay. Haven't had a problem since. When I mentioned it to the doctor, he said, "Some children take longer than others." Okay...so why suggest a more extreme measure right away?? I knew my baby was "okay", I just wanted reassurance. Oh...and my pediatric dentist told my mother that candy bars were better for teeth than apples b/c the sugar in the candy bar dissolves more quickly. It wouldn't sit in the teeth for as long as the sugars in the apple. I understand the "logic" behind that, but no way in Hell my mom was switching us from apples to CANDY BARS. I wouldn't do it either. Candy bars pose a lot more health risk than just cavities!

pwadams
2 yearss ago

I trust doctors because I feel that parents, as much as they try to educate themselves to health issues, we don't have the time or access to all the information we need to make the most informed decisions. Most people I know use half truths from news headlines and "what they've heard" to make decisions. I have to have faith that a doc has access to more definitive information to make more reliable recommendations to patients.

MeMyselfandMommy
2 yearss ago

Oh my, what a topic Maggie! I have fibromyalgia, it runs in my family, and it's miserable. It makes you very skeptical of the medical field because there is no way to prove that it's fibromgalgia instead of some major under lying problem that tests can detect. Also when you've been 'diagnosed' with FMS, when you go to the doctor because something is off, their automatic response is "It's just the fibro." When it comes to who to trust, I'm open to all opinions, knowledge, advice, doctors, parents, friends, research. I think it's important to be open minded, and to avoid getting tunnel vision. When it comes to medicine, there is no one right answer. Everyone is different, and our bodies respond differently to different treatments. Just because it worked for a friend, or your doctor has used the same treatment on five other people and it worked great, does not mean it's the best option for you. I want to know when we're going to get into discussion of alternative medicines, hormone free organic foods and things like that. I think the conversation would really heat up!

Lou
2 yearss ago

Alice, you are my hero. :) Personally, I take advice from both camps. However, when it comes down to it - I am going to go with my Doc's recommendations. We are lucky, we have good health insurance, the three of us see the same Doctor, she's young-ish, she has children around same age as our son and she is fairly progressive in her practice but she is a MD and thus practices traditional medicine. I'm all for natural remedies, nutrition, supplements (in moderation), etc. but in the end I will use an antibiotic if prescribed, we do vaccinate by our Doc's schedule, etc.

bwankel
2 yearss ago

I try to get as many viewpoints as I can. Other parents, my mom, the Internet, the pediatrician, everything I can gather. Then I try to make the best decision I can based on that information. I also trust my own intuition a lot. I learned early on in my son's life that my gut feelings actually count for quite a bit. With the MMR = Autism thing, I was worried for a while, but there's so much more out there that defies it, that I calmed down. Plus, I reminded myself that there's no history in my family of a reaction to the MMR or autism or really anything of that nature. I felt safe getting that vaccination for my son at 12 months.

lissak
2 yearss ago

It depends on the doctor, and it also VERY MUCH depends on the parent... For the first 10 months of my daughter's life, we were going to a pediatric practice, who I can honestly say I did not very much trust... after much drama, a nasty email (her not me), a pseudo emergency while we were in transition -- we have a pediatric practice who I trust with two doctors in specific. They've never pushed more than 1-2 vaccines at a time, and at times less. While I want her vaccinated, I also like to know if anything is causing a reaction. I also work with a team of professionals in my daughter's life who I very much trust and rely on for advice (not always on medical matters, but it has been spoken about). I have a SMALL group of parent/friends who I will seek advice from because it doesn't annoy me to hear it from them... people have said some pretty stupid things to me regarding my daughter and frankly I don't tolerate it as well as I used to. Occasionaly, if it's somebody I need to keep peace with, I get a blank stare and start nodding... but it's hard, really really hard. In the end, my husband and I are the ones who know my daughter's needs best.

nicnicnic
2 yearss ago

i bow down to alice... and give her a standing ovation for her comments regarding jenny mccarthy. no, she is not an authority figure. that's all. in my experience with my almost 2 year old son, we had A LOT of doctors and specialists after he was born who were WAY involved in our lives. my husband and i (and i think a lot of first time parents may experience this) over google things. we did. as soon as jackson started showing signs of a food allergy when i was nursing, we went to google... and given the times we live in right now, i almost consider that to be on the same page with going to another parent or friend... it's just another resource. point being, with any future children, obviously confidence will build (i hope!) in our trust in ourselves as parents. so...... doctors........ they're good. they do good work. *gritting my teeth* but i was waiting for one of the panelists to address what happens when one doctor disagrees with another. or what if you go and get a second opinion that doesn't necessarily match the original doctor's opinion? we fell into this situation a lot with jackson's feeding issues and ultimately we ended up trusting our doctors, to the point of having his specialists plead his case to the military to change my husband's orders from us living in japan to us living in maryland for johns hopkins children's center. we've been to JHC once in the 14 months we have lived here. am i glad we're not in japan? sure! i'd curl up and die if i was on the other side of the world from my family. did we make the right decision in trusting our doctors/specialists? at that time, yes. but now, 14 months later, jackson is a very different child than he was then, with different needs. i most definitely listen to other parents. i created my blog in order to FIND a community that addressed the same pediatric feeding issues i experienced with my son. and there's something to be said about that. do i trust them? not entirely. do i trust doctors? not entirely. do i trust myself as a mother? most days. :) do i trust alice bradley? YES.

SilverXeno
2 yearss ago

I have had doctors who I believe found their medical licenses under a homeless person on a park bench. Just recently, we have moved 1400 miles from "home" and I had to seek out a new pediatrcian for my kids. Alice, my child also eats VERY few foods (we're down to anything bland that can be covered in butter, and chicken nuggets now..waffles, noodles, pancakes, toast). I thought, new doc, new ideas?? "Oh, just let her eat what she likes." Um. NO! That's not healthy, that's not GOOD for her ALL the TIME. "If you're worried about calories, let her eat Oreos." Are you effing kidding me? If I had more options in this podunk town, I would have found another doctor. My daughter is not losing weight, losing hair, etc...so the doctors say she is "okay". But she went from being in the 75th weight percentile to the 50th, now she's in the 30th. B/c we've had a couple of doctor changes just in the past 2 years (civillian to military changes), I am worried no one is catching this. BUT then I have a friend who runs a daycare and says she had a kid that ate only bagels with cream cheese for 2 years straight. He's fine, and eventually ate more foods. I guess the difference between friends and doctors is doctors say things like 'lets run a test' or 'she'll be fine, this is normal for her age group'. Which doesn't make me feel better at all. It's generic. Then when I have friends who DO offer suggestiosns like, "Have you made her food into animals??" or tell me that their friend/relative/acquaintance had a child just like mine and DID eventually expand their food choices and isn't being prepared for a tiny coffin, I feel like there's a little hope. I have had doctors I was interviewing (from a large town, but it has a LOT of doctors all in the same camp as far as care goes, they all use the same crappy hospital b/c it lets them do whats best for THEM rather than for the patient) tell me I was "too zealous" about a certain procedure that I would not buckle on. I "wanted to dicatate care" too much. How is that even possible that I could be too interested in my own care? Basically, I will take what a doctor says...research it on my own, and then ask my friends, "Do you have any experience with this?" And when they can help if they've been there, it also helps me figure out what more I can research on my own...the exact terms I should be looking for. I would never have known about "super tasters" if not for a friend who is sure her family is full of them. I don't think that is my daughter's problem...but it was nice to know that if this continues in the future, there *is* a genetic test that can say if this is a problem. If it is or isn't...at least I can go from there. (BTW, I hate the newest to oldest way the comments read, can I change it back??)

velika
2 yearss ago

Um ... since when is it unscientific to take note of anecdotal evidence? Especially since many parents use their own child's fine reaction to vaccines as "evidence" that vaccines are safe? The CDC study that supposedly exonerates vaccines is probably more flawed than the Wakefield study that the Lancet renounced. Wouldn't it be more reassuring (and scientific) to *disprove* the Wakefield study with a better one, rather than dramatically expunging it from the records? Ironically, blanketly discounting parents' concerns over vaccine safety does little to help the goal of mass vaccination. Wouldn't it be better to take anecdotal evidence seriously, develop tests that could help determine whether (and which) children are at risk for adverse reactions, and identify which children can safely receive vaccines? The scientific method doesn't mean saying "f*** you" to someone whose opinions you don't like or understand. It means trying to reconcile studies, anecdotal evidence, and conflicting reports, and then developing more studies to investigate them some more. Thank you to Maggie for offering a nuanced perspective on the topic.

christine
2 yearss ago

Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence by definition. It was a bad study. It wasn't *flawed;* it was flat-out wrong. Yes, he noticed a pattern from anecdotal evidence. So he developed a hypothesis. He had no science to back it up, and it caused kids to go without vaccines. He basically ignored the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Bad science. And it was "disproven;" I'm not sure what you actually want them to do to convince you. The bad thing about believing things that aren't true (such as "vaccines cause autism") is that it is a roadblock for true understanding and a true cure.

Doctors or Parents: Who Do You Trust More?

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