Vaccine Myth #5: Infants Are Too Young to Get Vaccinated

Podcast 3
May 14, 2008
Health Headlines
May 16, 2008
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Vaccine Myth #5: Infants Are Too Young to Get Vaccinated

The Myth – Infants are too young to get vaccinated.
The Truth – It’s very important to make sure that infants are fully immunized against certain diseases by the age of six months.
Children need to be immunized during the first few months of life because a number of vaccine-preventable diseases could otherwise infect them. Fortunately, young infants are surprisingly good at building immunity to viruses and bacteria.
About 95 percent of children given DTaP, Hib, and hepatitis B virus vaccines will be fully protected by six months of age.
Some of the diseases for which young infants need protection include pertussis, Hib, meningitis, and hepatitis.
Consider these facts:
• Pertussis (whooping cough) infects about seven thousand children and causes six deaths every year in the United States. Almost all of the cases occur in nonimmunized children less than one year of age.
• Unvaccinated children under two years old are five hundred times more likely to catch Hib meningitis than an immunized child if someone with an Hib infection is living in the home.
• About 90 percent of newborns whose mothers are infected with hepatitis B will contract hepatitis and go on to develop chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and possibly liver cancer. Some will die.
You can read more about vaccine myths in my book God’s Design for the Highly Healthy Child.
Here are other blogs in this series you might find useful:

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