5 Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child
Vaccines are safe and effective for children
Vaccines are safe and effective for children
Childhood vaccines are one of the most effective ways to protect your child’s health and keep your community safe. Immunizations prevent serious diseases that were once common — such as polio, measles and meningitis — and save lives every day.
Staying on schedule with your child’s vaccines helps your pediatrician monitor their overall health, growth and development at each well-child visit.
Many parents follow the vaccination schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which helps ensure children and teens get the right shots at the right time.
Don’t delay or skip vaccinations
Delaying or skipping vaccinations can leave your child vulnerable to diseases that can cause serious illness, hospitalization or even death. Outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and other preventable illnesses most often happen in communities with low vaccination rates.
“If your child is due, or overdue, for vaccinations regardless of age, we urge you to make an appointment with your child’s doctor now,” says Erin O’Leary, MD, a pediatrician at Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley. “It is always better to prevent a disease than to try to treat it and its side effects after it occurs.”
Five reasons to vaccinate your child
1. Vaccines protect the most vulnerable
Babies are born with some natural immunity. However, their immunity systems are not strong enough to fight serious infections alone.
Children begin vaccination early because they are most vulnerable to diseases at a young age. Vaccines strengthen their immune system.
By age 2, children who follow the recommended vaccination schedule are protected from 14 potentially serious diseases.
“It’s crucial to maintain your child’s immunizations,” adds Dania Lindenberg, MD, a pediatrician at Scripps Coastal Medical Center Hillcrest. “Physicians are better able to diagnose a child who has symptoms of an illness when they know what the child has been vaccinated for already.”
The national Vaccines for Children program offers free vaccines for children whose parents or guardians may not be able to afford on their own.
2. Vaccines protect communities
When you vaccinate your child, you're also helping protect others — especially those who can't get vaccinated. This includes:
- Babies who are too young for certain vaccines
- Children with severe allergies that prevent vaccination
- Kids undergoing treatment for serious illnesses like cancer
3. Vaccines are safe and routinely recommended
Vaccines are thoroughly tested before they are approved for public use. Millions of children safely receive recommended vaccines every year. Mild side effects, like pain redness or tenderness at the injection site, are normal and go away quickly. Serious reactions are very rare.
“There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism or harm children,” says Dr. Lindenberg. “If you have questions about vaccine safety, get information from a trusted source, like your primary care doctor.”
Health experts recommend these routine vaccines for children and teens to protect against serious diseases:
- DTaP, polio, MMR, hepatitis A & B, varicella (chickenpox), and others
- Annual flu vaccine for everyone 6 months and older
- HPV vaccine series, starting at age 9, to help prevent certain cancers
- Annual updated COVID-19 vaccine for everyone 6 months and older
4. Diseases know no borders
Vaccine-preventable diseases continue to infect children in the US for a variety of reasons. Whooping cough (pertussis) and measles, for example, are less common than a generation ago but they still occur in the US.
The only disease that has been wiped out with a vaccine is smallpox. Polio is nearly eradicated but still exists in some countries that struggle with vaccinations.
Vaccine-preventable diseases in the US are often linked to foreign visitors and returning US travelers who have been exposed abroad.
5. Vaccines protects future generations
Because of vaccines, many diseases that used to harm or kill thousands of children in the US are now rare. Vaccinating your child helps prevent those diseases from coming back. This protects their children and grandchildren in the future.
“We are fortunate in the US to have easy access to vaccines that have allowed us to greatly reduce or eradicate several diseases,” Dr. O’Leary says
Keep your child healthy this school year
Back-to-school time is a great reminder to check your child’s vaccines. If you’re not sure which vaccines your child needs or if they’ve fallen behind, reach out to your pediatrician.
You can also visit a Scripps HealthExpress walk-in clinic for convenient childhood vaccines, including flu, Tdap, MMR, meningitis and more — no appointment needed. Make an appointment today to get them ready for a healthy school year.