When it comes to taking care of your child’s health, there are several factors that go into it. What’s more, it’s a cumulative process of different things. However, among the many factors that come into play, one of the more important ones would have to be the vaccines your child receives.
It’s true that getting sick is something that is bound to happen no matter how old you are. However, there are some things that you can do to help lessen the chances of you getting sick. There are also some things you can do to help you avoid certain illnesses altogether. You can do this with the help of vaccines.
Vaccines are given as early as the day your little one is born. These continue to be given until your child reaches a certain age, and even during adulthood. All of this in an effort to ensure vaccine-preventable diseases stay preventable and you (and your little one) don’t get seriously sick.
With that in mind, we’ll be taking a closer look at the newborn vaccines your little one receives once they’re born and the Childhood Immunization Schedule so you have a better idea of what other vaccines your child will receive and what not.
Your Newborn’s First Vaccines
From the moment you birth your little one, there are a whole host of things that happen to them. They’re dried and cleaned, their umbilical cord gets clamped and then cut, you’re encouraged to breastfeed them, and they’re assessed, among several other things. Then, they’re also given their first vaccines.
As mentioned above, these vaccines are part of an effort to ensure that they don’t catch any diseases they’d otherwise get without a vaccine. These are also the start of a list of other vaccines they’ll eventually get as they get. But, just what are these first vaccines anyway and what do they prevent? Well, these two are the BCG and Hep B vaccine.
BCG
BCG is short for Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, which is a combination of the bacteria that was used in its development and the two doctors responsible for its development too. This vaccine is given to babies born in areas where tuberculosis is very common. On its own, tuberculosis is already a rather difficult illness to deal with. However, in newborns, it can be especially fatal as contracting a TB infection can cause meningitis and also extrapulmonary TB symptoms. So, to prevent this, they’re given the BCG vaccine as soon as it is possible.
HepB
Short for Hepatitis B, the Hep B vaccine is the other newborn vaccine administered as soon as possible. This is because mothers may unknowingly be carriers of the Hep B virus and pass it on to their babies during the entire childbearing process and even during childbirth. As such, it is given within 24 hours. Doing so can help prevent the complications that a Hepatitis B infection causes, such as liver damage or liver cancer. These irreversible effects, which is why it’s extra important they get these vaccines. More so because they’re very easy to prevent.
The Vaccines To Follow
These are just the first of several other vaccines that your little one will get throughout their life. Within the following months, they’ll get boosters for their HepB vaccine, a series of vaccines for MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), and the varicella vaccine for chickenpox, among many others. These are all part of the Philippine Pediatric Society’s childhood immunization schedule.
By completing their vaccinations, you can at least assure that your child may either not get a particular vaccine-preventable disease or be able to get only a mild form of the disease. You might argue that this means that the vaccines don’t work if your child still gets sick. However, if your child were to get something like measles and not have a vaccine, their immune system would struggle to manage this infection. This could then end up with the worst result, which would be a mortality.
On the other hand, if they were to get measles even though they were vaccinated, you can at least be assured that their bodies will be able to handle this disease way better and they’ll recover from it soon enough. This is because the vaccines help build their immunity and prepare their immune system for any possible infection.
Knowing all that, you can see why it’s very important that your child gets their first two vaccines, as well as the rest of their childhood vaccines. By doing so, you ensure that they’re kept as healthy as possible. You also ensure that their immune systems are competent enough to battle any infections involving vaccine-preventable diseases. These are all studied and proven to be effective, so there’s no reason to have to worry. So, give yourself and your little one that much needed peace of mind by getting them vaccinated.
