3 Reasons Why You Should Vaccinate Your Baby
It is such a beautiful moment when a couple finds out they are expecting, and then that moment passes. Joy is sometimes replaced with fear when the reality of bringing a child into this world sets in. There are so many questions to be answered! Will you have a natural birth? Will you circumcise? Will the mother breastfeed? What about immunizations? It is a good thing that people naturally have 9 months to ponder the answer to these questions. While many of these important topics ultimately come down to parent choice, the more information they have the better. In order to help with the decision making process, here are a few reasons that immunizing your baby is a great idea.
1. Protection. One of the most natural feelings that emerges when one becomes a parent is the desire to protect their child. While this is true of protecting them from physical danger with baby proofing, many parents also long to protect their children from sickness or disease. While babies may be fussy when they actually receive their immunizations, it is a small price to pay to protect them from the potentially deadly effects of disease that they could be faced with.
2. The Magic Number 14. When pondering about whether or not to subject your child to immunizations, it is important to note that while your child may receive one to three vaccines, they are actually being protected from 14 diseases and ailments. There are 14 major immunizations a child can receive before the age of two. These include but are not limited to chicken pox (varicella), diphtheria, hepatitis A and B, measles, mumps, and the dreaded whooping cough. It is interesting that while these diseases were almost extinct in the United States for some time, numbers have recently been growing for measles and whooping cough. Many have hypothesized that this is due to the recent trend of parents choosing not to administer immunizations.
3. The Cost. Many of these immunizations could be costly on their own, but they are usually all covered with even the most basic insurance. This is due to the fact that insurance companies have found that it is far more cost effective to pay for the vaccine than to pay for the doctor's visits and hospital stays should an infant or child become infected. While you should check with your specific insurance provider, it is likely that all immunizations will be covered.