Do children need to be vaccinated? Do children need to be vaccinated: the benefits of vaccination, facts and prejudices. Problems that can arise if children do not have routine vaccinations.

Vaccination - good or bad? Hardly any other medical topic in the last decade has been discussed as widely as this one. Whether it is necessary to vaccinate children, whether they will cause serious illnesses in the future, how to protect the child from post-vaccination complications - the materials of our site will answer the questions of concerned mothers and fathers.

Where do the feet of fear grow from?

Parental fear of vaccination did not arise out of nowhere: the emergence of a growing number of ardent opponents of vaccination from year to year was preceded by massive campaigns in the media and social networks.

A paradoxical situation has been created: on the one hand, the quality of parents' knowledge about the essence, purpose and mode of action of vaccinations stubbornly tends to zero, on the other hand, their awareness of the possible tragic consequences of vaccination has long passed all conceivable limits.

Fact: even in Soviet times, there were cases of severe reactions to vaccinations - the very likelihood of such an outcome, although insignificant, is still described in all the annotations to the batches of drugs to this day. Another thing is that no one disturbed the public - it was a hidden statistic. That is why millions of Soviet children were quite safely vaccinated and later grew up strong and healthy people. It never occurred to anyone that vaccinations are harmful and dangerous!

pneumococcal conjugate vaccine

When the baby gets it: 2 months, 4 months and 6 months and 12 to 15 months. It can cause blood infections, ear infections, meningitis, and pneumonia in children. The vaccine protects children for up to three years, when they are most vulnerable to the disease. When the baby gets it: 2 months, 4 months and 6 months, and the booster is 12 to 15 months.

Inactivated polio vaccine

It prevents: Polio, once a widespread epidemic that killed and paralyzed thousands of people. When baby gets it: 2 months, 4 months, 6 to 18 months, and 4 to 6 years. Possible side effects: Soreness or redness near the injection site; rarely an allergic reaction occurs.

There is another reason for the growing panic around mandatory vaccination: trust in the doctor's word has fallen to a critical point. Even back in the mid-90s, no one even thought to challenge the invitation of the local pediatrician to be vaccinated: it is necessary - that means it is necessary. Now, in medical recommendations, parents are increasingly inclined to see a hidden intention to harm the child, and even make money on it. Alas…

So, let's summarize: parents' fear of vaccinations is completely irrational, but it is largely provoked by judgments imposed from the outside and a well-directed stream of negativity, with which doctors drowning in piles of office papers simply have no time to fight.

We, the creators of the site and the authors of publications, remain staunch supporters of the vaccination of children and set ourselves the task of dispelling the fears of our readers by talking in an accessible way about everything related to vaccination:

• About types of vaccines, mechanisms of their action
• Proper preparation for vaccination
• About post-vaccination complications
• About medical exemptions: who really cannot be vaccinated
• Why do children still need to be vaccinated?

Benign, objectively presented information is what mothers and fathers of babies really need: it will be equally useful both for those who consider vaccinations an important component of caring for a child, and for those who have not yet made a choice or are sharply negative.

In the end, it is always worth listening to the arguments of opponents - perhaps they will seem quite convincing to those who generally deny the benefits of vaccination.

What is a vaccination?

The goal of any vaccination campaign is to prevent a possible epidemic of infections that could disable or kill millions of adults and children.

To do this, a dose of a preparation containing a minimum number of strains of infectious and dangerous infections is administered subcutaneously, cutaneously, intramuscularly or orally. This is the vaccine.

The resulting effect is comparable to a mild form of the course of diseases: the natural process of infection is imitated, to which the immune system responds and forms further immunity in the event of a full-fledged infection.
In other words, a vaccinated child either does not get sick at all when an epidemic rages around, or suffers an infection attack very easily and without complications.

What would happen if there were no vaccinations?

Let's imagine for a moment that vaccination has been canceled all over the world. Nothing else strains the immune system, does not cause complications: human organisms are finally given complete freedom - now let them cope with diseases themselves.
Do you know what will probably happen in the first twenty years, when children grow up without vaccinations?

And here's what:

• We will again learn what epidemics of highly contagious diseases are - measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, rubella
• Tuberculosis will start to mow us again - and no high-calorie diet will help
• Raise your head and disable millions of children polio
• Epidemics turn into pandemics

Fact: before the advent of the first vaccines, humanity approached the brink of extinction several times. The plague pandemic in the 14th century claimed 60 million lives, the cholera pandemics, the last of which occurred in the 60-70s of the last century, killed about five million people in total. "Spanish flu" - the most severe form of influenza - completely broke all deadly records: in 1918-1919, from 50 to 100 million inhabitants of the Earth died from it.

Is it true that a vaccine can make a child sick?

Flu vaccines are a safe and effective way to help people stay healthy, prevent illness, and even save lives. As people age, they may be at higher risk for complications from the flu. For this reason, it is recommended that older people aged 65 years and over get an inactivated flu vaccine or a flu shot every year.

The inactivated influenza vaccine is provided free of charge to the elderly. Contact your health care provider to get your flu vaccine. The inactivated influenza vaccine is safe. It contains killed influenza viruses that cannot cause influenza. Common reactions to the vaccine include redness, soreness, or swelling when the shot was given. These reactions can last from 1 to 2 days.

Poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus, tuberculosis, hepatitis - the most contagious and serious infections, for which more and more vaccines have been created and continue to be created, have their own sad account.

And if now the world lives in relative safety, then this is precisely due to total vaccination, and not luck or the disappearance of dangerous infections. It is important to know that viruses and microbes have not gone away, they are simply tightly controlled.

There is only one thing that inspires hope - the number of supporters of vaccination is still much larger than the number of its opponents: there is a system of collective security in the world, which is ensured precisely by vaccinated people.
In epidemiology, the following ratio is accepted: in order to prevent an epidemic from arising, at least 95 percent of children and adults must be vaccinated. Five percent of the "refuseniks" in this case do not make any difference - the society is still reliably protected from outbreaks of infections.

The rise in anti-vaccine numbers will inevitably lead to a catastrophe, the consequences of which will be very difficult to deal with.

What are anti-vaxxers saying?

Usually the following arguments are voiced:

• The quality of vaccines is doubtful - they are produced with gross violations of technology
• No one adheres to the rules for storage and transportation, children are injected with expired drugs
• It is not a fact that a child will definitely get sick while living in a civilized society, so there is nothing to strain the body in vain because of an absolutely hypothetical danger
• Even many doctors oppose vaccinations and do not vaccinate their children

Well, now let's present our counterarguments.

Vaccine quality

The quality of vaccines produced by domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies is, in fact, quite commendable.

If this were not so, the world would simply be overwhelmed by a wave of childhood disabilities and deaths - and no one would be able to hide this fact. Imagine the headlines in the media: “Shock: after a mass vaccination, all children in city N of such and such a country died!”, “Vaccinations killed the entire child population of country A, made all the children of country B disabled!”.

Represented? Wildness, right? Following the logic of the adherents of the argument about the low quality of vaccines, then it is necessary to completely abandon any medical preparations: if no one in pharmaceutical companies controls the quality of vaccination materials, then all their other products are also dangerous. However, we buy, treat and recover. So, quality control is all right?

Rules for storage and transportation

The cold chain is really critical here: vaccines are capricious material and prone to rapid deterioration due to temperature changes. Nobody intentionally breaks this rule. Medical workers are people who have undergone special training and are well aware of the consequences of improper storage of these drugs.

In addition, they are personally responsible for everything that will happen to the people vaccinated by them after the introduction of a low-quality vaccine. The same applies to delays. An expired vaccine is not sour milk in the supermarket. Believe me, no one wants to go to jail. And in general, do not consider your compatriots involved in medicine as misanthropes.

Will it suddenly pass?

A little higher, we wrote about why five percent of "refuseniks" can afford the luxury of thinking that their children most likely will not get sick. In general, they are right: when 95 percent of the people around are vaccinated, the likelihood of getting some kind of severe infection is really low.

Now imagine that the number of opponents of vaccinations has increased dramatically and amounts to 50 percent. Or 95 percent: former supporters of vaccination suddenly became afraid of the consequences that adherents of a “vaccine-free” childhood so often scare. Here and before the epidemic is not far, so it is unlikely to carry.

Here is another counterargument: both we and our children live among people. And people breathe, sneeze, blow their nose, and can even injure - bite, for example. At this point, they can easily be sick or carriers of infections.

Now calculate your chances of "slipping" if you or your child does not have specific immunity. By the way, epidemics and pandemics begin precisely where there are critically few vaccinated people or none at all. Therefore, for example, the countries of Africa - the poorest continent - often become the main newsmakers in terms of outbreaks of diseases long forgotten in prosperous Europe or North America.

Even the doctors are against it!

Doctors are people too. And they tend to make mistakes, despite the large baggage of special knowledge and experience. They also have a legally enforceable right to conscientious error - did you know that? Here they will tell you, promise, convince - and nothing will happen to them for this: well, they made a mistake, it happens.

Dangerous, however, not a delusion. The strange magic of a long-depreciated medical diploma is dangerous: for some reason, any scandalous and often awkward ideas promoted by people in white coats are a resounding success. The more scandalous, the more reliable. Yes. The doctor said it's sacred. Another paradox.

God knows why some doctors are so vehemently against vaccinating and not even vaccinating their own children. Obviously, not without reason, they count on the fact that those same 95 percent of conscious parents live around them, who take all the risks of vaccination, ultimately creating a completely favorable epidemiological picture that prevents doctor's children from getting seriously ill.

In fairness, it must be said that there are actually few of them. Most doctors and nurses very much vaccinate their own children and regularly vaccinate themselves.

Why does the baby need so many vaccinations?

The first three years of a healthy child's life really account for the largest number of planned vaccinations: the first of them - against hepatitis B - the baby receives already 12 hours after birth, then comes the turn of BCG, which is done in a few days.

A lot of? Yes! But they are absolutely necessary, because it is at this age that children are most vulnerable to infection attacks, and children's immunity is still too fragile to cope with serious illnesses alone.

Vaccinations are especially important in the first year, while the baby’s organs and systems are intensively developing, so the question of whether children should be vaccinated should not even be raised at all.

Absolutely all vaccinations must be done, and on time. Read more about why regularity is important.

The most important vaccinations of the first year

Hepatitis B vaccine

The very first vaccine a child receives. It protects babies from severe viral liver damage, which often leads to cirrhosis in the future. How can a small child get hepatitis B? For example, with some medical manipulations: alas, not all nurses are conscientious and change gloves before each injection. An accidental cut with an infected object can also cause infection.

Is it necessary to do? Moms are usually confused by horror stories about jaundice, which allegedly inevitably happens to vaccinated children, and they strongly associate the complication in the form of cirrhosis with alcoholism: they say, why does a child need a completely useless and, in addition, dangerous vaccination? Newborn jaundice actually has other causes, and cirrhosis is not only in alcoholics - this is the truth of life. Therefore, be sure to do so!

BCG vaccination

Usually there are no problems with it, because everyone knows that tuberculosis is not a joke, and this disease cannot be called rare.

Polio vaccination

Another stumbling block and the subject of fierce debate. Is it necessary to do? Opponents of this vaccine rely on the greater rarity of the disease. How is it really? The inhabitants of the planet are actively migrating in search of a better life, carrying their diseases with them. The leaders in migration are just citizens of problem countries where poverty thrives and wars are fought, which means that no one is monitoring the epidemiological situation there. The result is the "export" of the same poliomyelitis to Europe, where everyone forgot about this disease. Conclusion - definitely do the vaccination!

Measles, rubella, diphtheria, mumps

Severe diseases that can lead to disability and even death of a sick child. Don't be careless - vaccinate your children. Combination vaccines are quite reliable and effective.

flu shot

Another type of vaccination that most doctors insist on, but parents unanimously ignore these recommendations. The opponents' reason is not devoid of logic: flu vaccines are aimed at fighting only one strain, and there is no guarantee that it will come in winter. That is, the vaccine may turn out to be meaningless - so why strain children's immunity? The question remains open so far: neither side is able to collect enough arguments in favor of its point of view.

About the vaccination calendar

Vaccination campaigns are not carried out randomly: each vaccination is tied to specific dates. This is explained by clinical evidence of the greatest effectiveness of the introduction of vaccines at a particular age.

Of course, life makes its own changes: for example, it is time for a child to be vaccinated, but he is just sick, so the vaccination period has to be shifted until he is fully recovered. However, it is better to still adhere to the recommendations made in the vaccination calendar so that the effect of vaccination is maximum.

The risk of epidemics of dangerous diseases is now immeasurably lower than just a few decades ago, and this is largely due to vaccinations. However, it is still possible to encounter a pathogen anywhere. For example, you can become infected by airborne droplets from an infected foreign tourist visiting your city. Or bring home a virus from a foreign resort. As a result, your child will get infected and get sick. But if he receives the necessary vaccinations in infancy, this almost certainly will not happen.

There are many other ways that unvaccinated children can pick up a pathogen. For example, in contact with a patient with tuberculosis. Or playing in the sandbox where stray dogs and cats run. By vaccinating your baby, you will protect him from this danger.

Finally, it is especially important to protect children from diseases at the most vulnerable age - up to 1 month, when their immunity is still being formed. And here the role of vaccinations is difficult to overestimate. Even if the child gets sick, the vaccine will noticeably mitigate the course of the disease.

Some people believe that a breastfed baby almost never gets sick. But this is not true.

Although the immunity of the baby is really stronger than that of a child who eats artificial mixtures.

Arguments against vaccinations

Finally, according to medical statistics, many people who fell ill with diphtheria in the 1990s had previously been vaccinated against this disease, and more than once. But vaccinations did not protect them from the disease.

Therefore, when deciding whether to vaccinate a baby, parents should think carefully and weigh all the arguments for and against vaccinations.

The debate about whether a child needs to be vaccinated or write a refusal has been going on in social networks for years. The number of those who are in favor of vaccination is approximately equal to the number of those who oppose it.

Doctors strongly recommend that a child be vaccinated starting from the hospital. It is here that a newborn is vaccinated against viral hepatitis B in the first 12 hours of life, a week-old baby is vaccinated against tuberculosis. Further, in accordance with the national immunization calendar, the child is expected to be vaccinated against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, rubella and mumps.

Before each vaccine administration, parents must sign the appropriate document authorizing or denying the vaccination. Doctors warn that there is still a minimal likelihood of complications after vaccination, as well as the possibility of an unvaccinated child getting sick, however, pediatricians leave the final decision to the parents.

Vaccinations and educational institutions

Parents who have refused vaccinations should be aware that they will have to face problems when entering kindergarten, and subsequently, school.
In kindergarten and school, parents are required to provide a medical card of the established form, signed by the head physician of the children's clinic. The main problem is that state and municipal kindergartens only accept cards from district polyclinics, refusing cards issued by commercial clinics. If the child was only attached to a medical institution at the place of residence from birth, and the observation was carried out by doctors in a commercial center, then you will have to visit the head physician’s office more than once in order to, guided by your legal rights as a parent, get the coveted signature. Knowledge of Federal Law No. 157 "On Immunoprophylaxis of Infectious Diseases" will help to minimize problems.

Lack of vaccinations is the reason for the bans

In addition to disagreements with the kindergarten and school, problems can also arise when traveling abroad. Lack of necessary vaccinations can lead to a ban on entry into a number of countries. In addition, the refusal also entails a restriction in the choice of a future profession, since mandatory vaccination may be required when applying for a job. In any case, the final decision on the need for vaccinations is made by the parents. In case of refusal of vaccination, it is necessary to document this. Before signing a waiver, you should familiarize yourself with its consequences and possible complications.

Endless dispute

In a dispute between opposing parties, vaccination must win the mind. You can postpone the first vaccination until the child is six years old, by the time the immune system matures. Vaccinations should be done strictly according to indications.

Before vaccination, it is necessary to identify the absence of certain antibodies, and only in this case to vaccinate.

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