5 Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child

As your child’s parent or guardian, you surely want what’s best for them. You want to give them the best life you possibly can and then some. From good meals to good clothes, you try your best, but one of the often-overlooked things that can drastically improve your child’s quality of life is vaccinations. Making sure that your child is up to date on all their vaccinations helps protect not only your child, but also your family and those around you. Here are five reasons to vaccinate your child and help keep them safe.

1. Vaccines can save your child’s life, protecting them against all sorts of diseases that could otherwise kill them. Fatal diseases are prevented by vaccines, and so many diseases that were once catastrophic are now so rare, or even eliminated, as a result of vaccines. From smallpox to polio, vaccines can help prevent even the worst of diseases, and there is a reason why polio is no longer feared in America.
2. Vaccines protect those around you, especially other children and the elderly, or people with weak immune systems. Children who cannot be vaccinated because of allergies, poor immune systems, leukemia, or because they are simply too young, are especially vulnerable to vaccine-prevented diseases. In the United States, there have been between 10,000 and 50,000 cases of whooping cough annually, and between 10 and 20 babies die each year as a result. Vaccinating your child protects them, your family, other children, and those with weak immune systems.
3. Vaccines help manage and eliminate dangerous diseases. Smallpox was eliminated across the world as a result of the vaccine, and it is because of vaccinations that nobody needs to get the smallpox vaccine anymore. If everyone vaccinates their children, we can hope that, in the future, many of the diseases that are harming people all over the world may one day be nonexistent.
4. Vaccines can help you avoid spending money. Children who catch vaccine-prevented diseases may not be allowed to go to school or daycare, and this often results in parents needing to take time off to look after the child because no other arrangements could be made. On top of this, the disease my result in the child becoming temporarily or permanently disabled, leading to extended medical care that may not be covered by insurance. Vaccines are often covered by insurance, and low-income families in the United States can take advantage of the Vaccines for Children program that provides vaccines at no charge.
5. Vaccines are safe. Modern vaccines undergo rigorous testing, and there are several ethical and safety reviews before vaccines are available to the public. Being vaccinated may be uncomfortable and result in slight swelling, pain, or redness, but the slight pain experienced in the hours after a vaccine is nothing compared to the disease’s symptoms that one is now vaccinated against.