Sunday morning I received a phone call from a parent of one of my son’s friends. It was an invitation to a chickenpox party. Obviously this wasn’t your typical get together.

Does this seem like cruel and unusual punishment? Maybe, but I had to wonder-were these parents on to something?

One of the first choices you make as a parent is whether or not you are going to vaccinate your child. Modern medicine will argue that the benefits of vaccinations far outweigh the risks, but for some parents, including myself, this is just not a good enough answer. At the forefront of these so-called risks is the rise of autism in our country over the past twenty years.

Many parents feel that there is a direct link between the increase of autistic children being born and vaccines, especially the mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine.

As parents, we all want what is best for our child. But what about when you feel that what is best, actually puts them at risk? I decided that before I could commit our attendance to the party, I would need to do some research on the matter.

I immediately called up my sons pediatrician, Dr. Menzies, to get his perspective. “I think chicken pox parties are a bad idea for two reasons,” he says. “One – there are rare, but potentially devastating complications of chickenpox infections, such as chickenpox meningitis, pancreatitis, and pneumonia. And two – a person who gets chicken pox is later at risk for shingles, which can be a miserable illness. Again, with potentially devastating complications, such as years of pain due to post herpetic neuralgia.”

Another potential problem he mentioned is that some mothers at the party may be pregnant without knowing it, and could contract chickenpox. Chickenpox in a pregnant woman can cause fatal chickenpox pneumonia.

While there are obvious risks to contracting wild chickenpox, statistics from the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals an abundance of reports made by both doctors and parents to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center says, “This FDA report confirms our concern that the chickenpox vaccine may be more reactive than anticipated in individuals with both known and unknown biological high risk factors.”

The concern parents have with vaccines is the plethora of conflicting opinions regarding their children’s safety. No parent wants to put his or her child at any kind of risk. Unfortunately, the question here seems to be, which risk is greater?

In the end my husband and I decided against exposing Rowan, our four-year-old, to chickenpox. The thought of purposely putting him in harm’s way goes against everything we believe in as parents. However, we also passed on the vaccine.

Needless to say, it is an ongoing discussion. But for now I think we’ll just stick to the common birthday party.