The short answer: yes! The long answer, of course, only you and your pediatrician can give. For a new parent it is disheartening to take a little infant to the doctor’s office only to have him stuck with needles, poked and prodded, and all this by the tender age of two months! The baby will probably cry with gut-wrenching sounds, and the caring parent is probably already beside herself when surveying the many shots the baby will be getting in the next two years.
Add to this the confusion that has been propagated by those who have linked vaccinations to anything and everything from SIDS to autism. You might be wondering if you are doing your child a disservice by introducing so many different substances to its little immune system. After all, there are tribes living somewhere in the Amazon that have never heard of vaccinations and their children are doing well, aren’t they? Or what about those who have religious objections – their kids seem to pull through all right!
Considering the fact that there are far less germs and bacteria in the Amazon than on the average push button at the pedestrian traffic light, and that the religious objectors have more luck than anything else – probably because all the kids their children interact with are indeed vaccinated – these are poor examples to make life decisions by. Additionally, those who have sought to use obscure studies to link vaccinations to SIDS and autism have long since had to admit that there is no actual hard evidence, just a lot of conjecture and “what if” second guessing.
In truth, the battery of vaccinations your little one will receive while and infant and toddler will prevent many life-threatening, permanently disabling diseases from taking hold of your child’s immune system. If you have ever been to the hospital with a baby and the doctor could not figure out what was wrong, and ordered lengthy tests that involved a lot of needles, IVs and other invasive methods, you will be able to appreciate being able to spare your child this when it comes to such preventable diseases as whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus. After all, if you keep your child vaccinated, observe the hand washing rules, and have a child blessed with good health, you might only see the inside of a hospital emergency room for stitches after a baseball game! So go ahead and protect your child from all the illnesses you can.
