When I first became pregnant, it didn?t occur to me to question whether or not I would vaccinate my child. It was just something you did.
In fact, I didn?t wonder much in general about the medical model of pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. I figured that as long as I read a book or two and followed my doctor?s advice, my kid would be healthy and everything would be fine. Every parent I knew had followed the same basic path: Find an OB, give birth in a hospital, check all the boxes and hit every milestone. I had no idea that any other framework existed.

But then I did pick up a book or two and joined a few ?crunchy? parenting communities online. I soon discovered that reading about pregnancy and childbirth was like slipping into an alternate universe where solid facts were suddenly revealed to be far more fluid. I came across articles on home birth, unassisted birth and vaccine skepticism. I learned that many of the advocates for these ideas were as convinced by their righteousness as western doctors are about their own. I found that most any parenting debate veers almost immediately toward worst-case scenarios, with people on all sides of the debate accusing their opponents of child abuse. Every parent is terrified of making the wrong choices for their children, which makes sense. The problem is that fear takes over everything. It suffocates any other possibility. By the end of my pregnancy, I was so inundated with advice, opinions and seemingly conf...