Immunization is basically giving vaccines to protect your kids against certain diseases. Vaccine is actually a special type of substance that is injected into the human body to develop the immunity against certain infectious diseases. All babies are born with natural immunity against diseases but immunization help them becoming even stronger against certain types of serious illness. There was a time when diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis were among the killer diseases in childhood and there was no way to prevent them but today with immunization children can be prevented from all these diseases.
When Immunization begins?
Nowadays, newborns are immunized against some serious illness but sometime back, babies of two months of age were preferred for immunization as it was believed that from this age they start losing their natural defence against infections. When your baby is born, your physician gives you an immunization chart describing the different stages of immunization and mentioning the illness against which the vaccine is injected. You should follow that chart to prevent your baby from being infected by some serious illness.
How Immunization works?
Immune system of babies develops different antibodies to fight against different infections. There are some serious diseases against which doctors inject vaccines that mimic a natural infection without giving the child the disease. This small amount of substance prepares the body to fight against that infection if it comes along. The immunity developed by the vaccines generally lasts for a long time or even for a lifetime, thus immunization safeguards your baby against dangerous infections.
Some diseases against which immunization is done are:
Risk or Side effects of Immunization:
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Some type of Meningococcal diseases
- Some type of Pneumococcal disease
- Rotavirus gastroenteritis
The risk associated with various types of vaccines is very low and immunizations has proven safe and effective. However, as any medicine can bring some side-effects, vaccines generally associate mild risk factors such as fever that may lasts up to several days, redness and inflammation at the point where vaccine is injected, irritation at the site of injection, etc. All these side-effects are temporary and are really fine as compared to symptoms of disease themselves.
These vaccines offer complete security to your baby from most of the dangerous diseases, for long time or for even a lifetime. Thus, it`s better to get your baby immunized against all preventable diseases well in advance, instead of dealing with the diseases later.