Why is it important to vaccinate my baby?

Key points:
1. Experts agree that vaccines for children are crucial in preventing serious diseases and are considered safe.
2. Newborns receive temporary immunity from mothers, but after a year, they need vaccines for ongoing protection.
3. Vaccination reduces infections and can prevent disease outbreaks that harm vulnerable individuals.
4. Vaccine safety is closely monitored, and while mild side effects can occur, the benefits far outweigh the risks. Debunked myths, like vaccines causing autism, should not deter vaccination.

There are a lot of myths that surround vaccines for children. So much information available at our fingertips can cause fear and confusion. However, doctors and health experts, such as the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), suggest that vaccines are safe and highly important.

Babies’ immune system

According to the CDC, newborn babies usually are immune to diseases because their moms passed them antibodies, but this just lasts their first year of life. After this period, babies no longer have protection against diseases and germs. Still, the AAP insists that, even though breastfeeding helps to give protection to babies, it doesn’t substitute vaccines for children. They recommend vaccinating your breastfed baby since studies have shown that breastfeeding plus vaccines give better protection for children.

Vaccines for children 

Immunization protects our children from serious illnesses that can lead to death. They are so efficient that their implementation has led to a dramatic decline in the emergence of infections. They work by creating immunity against various diseases; saving lives in this generation and the ones to come. Therefore, if parents don’t vaccinate their children, they can cause a disease outbreak that could have been easily prevented. Likewise, children who aren’t vaccinated can transmit diseases to other children who are too young to be vaccinated, to elderly people, or those with weak immune systems.

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It is important to mention that vaccines’ safety and effectiveness are in constant study since they must be safe for children. When a new vaccine is considered, they are tested before it is approved, and after licensure, they are still monitored.

Vaccinating your child will help strengthen their immune system and protect them against diseases such as tetanus, whooping cough, rubella, hepatitis B, polio, and others. Thanks to vaccines, these diseases are now rare. Most are no longer known, even though they caused epidemics in the past. Furthermore, vaccines save you money as treating a preventable disease is very costly; if we avoid vaccination, diseases can reemerge and affect many people.

Side effects

Many parents have doubts about the side effects that may occur after vaccinating their children. They do exist, but they are most commonly mild such as fever or pain around the affected area. There are other side effects such as redness or tenderness, but usually, they last a short time. There is a possibility of developing more serious side effects but they are extremely rare.

Now, despite side effects, illnesses usually are worse than the collateral effects that vaccines bring. Therefore, we must not be afraid of them and we recommend being very conscious about what the media says about the myths that surround vaccines, like the myth that says that vaccines for children cause autism –which research has shown that it is not true.