Other times the vaccine is simply a small piece of the germ, such as a protein or a piece of its genetic material. Germs can be viruses such as the measles virus or bacteria such as pneumococcus. Vaccines stimulate the immune system to react as if there were a real infection.
It fends off the "infection" and remembers the germ. Then, it can fight the germ if it enters the body later. The American Academy of Pediatrics AAP recommends that kids get combination vaccines rather than single vaccines whenever possible.
Many vaccines are offered in combination to help lower the number of shots a child gets. This has been shown to be very safe. From the day a baby is born, their immune system is exposed to countless germs every day.
You will be advised when it is safe for your child to return. Be prepared to keep your child home for up to several weeks. Learn about the disease and how it spreads, although it may be impossible to avoid exposure. Each disease is different. The time between when your child may have been exposed and when he may get sick will vary. If you know that your child has been exposed to a vaccine-preventable disease, learn what symptoms to look for and get urgent medical care if these develop.
Follow recommendations to separate your child from others, including family members — especially newborn babies, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems or chronic diseases. Tetanus: Vaccination is the best protection Tetanus also called lockjaw is a serious disease caused by germs found in the soil. It does not spread from child to child. If your child is not vaccinated against tetanus, they are at risk. Even a minor cut or wound that has a tiny bit of soil in it can cause an infection.
Over half of those who get tetanus have no history of a major cut or injury, so if your child becomes sick, make sure the doctor knows right away that they are not vaccinated. Travelling without vaccination When travelling to another country, you and your family may be at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases. However, the bacteria and viruses that cause them still exist and can still make children very sick. For example, before the Hib vaccine was developed in the s, there were about 20, cases of Hib disease in the United States a year.
Today there are fewer than cases a year. However, the bacteria that causes Hib disease still exists. That is why children still need the vaccine to be protected. In the United States vaccines protect children from many diseases. However, in many parts of the world vaccine-preventable diseases are still common. Because diseases may be brought into the United States by Americans who travel abroad or from people visiting areas with current disease outbreaks, it's important that your child is vaccinated.
Chickenpox is usually mild. However, there can be serious complications. In fact, before the vaccine was licensed in , there were about 4 million cases, 11, hospitalizations, and deaths each year from chickenpox.
Chickenpox is also very contagious. Most children feel miserable and miss a week or more of school when infected. It is because of the vaccine that the number of cases of chickenpox and its complications, including deaths, have gone down so dramatically. While breastfeeding gives some protection against many diseases and is the best nutrition for your baby , it is not a substitute for vaccines. In fact, breastfeeding and vaccines work well together.
Studies show that breastfed babies respond better to vaccines and get better protection from them than babies who are not breastfed. And breastfeeding during or right after immunizations may help calm babies upset by the shots.
Vaccines work very well. Millions of children have been protected against serious illnesses because they were immunized. Children who aren't vaccinated are much more likely to get a disease if they are exposed to it. And if a vaccinated child does get the disease, the symptoms are usually milder with fewer complications than in a child who hasn't been vaccinated. Children should get most of their shots during their first 2 years after birth.
This is because many of these diseases are the most severe in the very young. Most newborns receive their first shot hepatitis B at birth before leaving the hospital, and more are given at well-child checkups in the first 6 months after birth. Other shots are given before children go to school. Older children and teens need vaccines to continue to protect them throughout adolescence and early adulthood. Parents and caregivers also need vaccines so that they can prevent bringing infections home to their children and to keep themselves healthy so that they can care for their children!
But it's almost always much less severe than if a child became infected with the disease-causing virus itself. However, for kids with weakened immune systems, such as those being treated for cancer, these vaccines may cause problems.
The risk of disease from vaccination is extremely small. The success of the polio vaccination program has made it possible to replace the live virus vaccine with a killed virus form known as the inactivated polio vaccine IPV. This change has completely eliminated the possibility of polio disease being caused by immunization in the United States.
It is true that a single child's chance of catching a disease is low if everyone else is immunized. But your child is also exposed to people other than just those in school. And if one person thinks about skipping vaccines, chances are that others are thinking the same thing. Each child who isn't immunized gives highly contagious diseases one more chance to spread.
Although vaccination rates are fairly high in the United States, there's no reliable way to know if everyone your child comes into contact with has been vaccinated, particularly now that so many people travel to and from other countries. So the best way to protect your kids is through immunization. Babies have stronger immune systems than you might think, and they can handle far more germs than what they receive from vaccines.
In fact, the amount of germs in vaccines is just a small percentage of the germs babies' immune systems deal with every day. Sometimes, kids can have a reaction to a vaccine like a mild fever or rash.
But the risk of serious reactions is small compared with the health risks associated with the often-serious diseases they prevent, and do not happen because the baby got several vaccines at once. A lot of consideration and research went into creating the immunization schedule most doctors use, and it has been proven safe time and time again.
Still, some parents choose to use alternative schedules spreading or "spacing out" vaccines because they're concerned about the number of shots their babies get at each checkup. This is actually more likely to make a baby sick. Studies show that many babies on alternative immunization schedules never get all the vaccines they need. Plus, alternative schedules can be a real hassle.
Spacing out vaccines over more doctor visits means that you'll have to take your child to the doctor — and your child will have to get a shot — more often. They greatly reduce your child's risk of serious illness particularly when more and more people are vaccinated and give diseases fewer chances to take hold in a population. It can be hard to watch kids get a shot, but the short-term pain is nothing compared with suffering through a potentially deadly bout of diphtheria , whooping cough , or measles.
Vaccinations are intended to help keep healthy kids healthy. Because vaccines work by protecting the body before disease strikes, if you wait until your child gets sick, it will be too late for the vaccine to work.
The best time to immunize kids is when they're healthy. In rare cases, immunizations can trigger more serious problems, such as seizures or severe allergic reactions.
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