As an African mother I have never thought to question vaccines. Except one time when health workers showed up at our house asking for kids under a certain age to provide a seasonal vaccine for them due to an outbreak.

My sister, who was the mother of young children at that time, showed complete faith in the system and reiterated that the health department knows what it's doing and it's best to follow their guidance as you don't want to roll the dice with your children's health.

Coming from Africa, we also know the importance of vaccines such as polio and measles. These diseases are deadly for children who are not vaccinated. Not only are those vaccines important, they are also mandated by many governments across the continent, and not vaccinating your child could be consequential to the parents.

Therefore, coming across anti-vaxxers is often interesting to me. In America, for example, it is up to the parent to decide whether or not they would like to vaccinate their children. In Europe, some vaccines are mandatory, while others are left up to the parents to decide.

Although I am very much pro-vaccinations and all my children are up to date on their shots, there are some vaccines I do not believe in. For example, the flu shot. It doesn't work and most of us who grew up in Africa grew up without the flu shot. You get the flu once a year and you get over it. Some vaccines that the doctors say are “recommended but not a must” prompt me to do a lot of research on them, often opting out if there is no proven record of it being particularly necessary.

I have been critical of parents who do not vaccinate their children because evidence of the need to vaccinate has been proven over the years. However, these parents claim that vaccines can cause changes in the children's bodies, often linking them with autism or other behavioral and developmental disorders.

I remain critical of this mindset because research has proven that there is no link of causality between vaccines and certain conditions. However, a particular experience this week made me question myself and my beliefs.

My six-month-old had a couple of vaccinations last week and it all went fine. No fevers or pains to be reported. But, he was different for a time. He was extra giddy, very, very alert and extremely strong. It did not last long but it lasted long enough after the shots for me to notice the difference in my child.

We trust scientists and hope that they do their very best for humanity. I couldn't help but think at that moment, perhaps what they tell us is the majority of the good news, but do they really tell us the whole truth? Are there hidden dangers in vaccines that they do not tell us about because they deem them negligible?