Vaccines: Why Your Child Should Get Them

You want to do what is best for your children. It is important to keep your children safe with car seats, baby gates, and other measures. Do you know that one of the best ways to protect your children is to ensure they have all of their vaccinations?

Here are the top reasons to protect your child by vaccinating them against serious diseases.

1. Parents want to do everything possible to ensure the health and well-being of their children. Vaccination is the best way to do that.
2. As a result of vaccines, children are protected from serious illnesses and complications associated with vaccine-preventable diseases, including amputation of an arm or leg, hospitalization, pneumonia, hearing loss, convulsions, brain damage, and death.
3. Vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough, measles, and influenza are still a threat. They continue to infect children, resulting in yearly hospitalizations and deaths.
4. Vaccination has dramatically reduced infectious diseases in the U.S., but some, such as measles, are frequent in other countries and are brought here by international travelers. Children that have not been vaccinated may easily contract one of these diseases from a traveler.
5. There are outbreaks of preventable diseases when parents do not vaccinate their children.
6. Vaccination is safe and effective. All vaccines undergo careful review by doctors, scientists, and the federal government to ensure they are safe.
7. Children who are not vaccinated can spread disease to others too young to receive vaccinations or to people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and transplant recipients. For these vulnerable individuals, this could lead to long-term complications and even death.

Parents need to take action to protect their children's health through vaccinations. Please talk to your trusted local family healthcare provider or child's doctor to ensure that your child is up-to-date on immunizations.