Arguments for vaccinations for babies
Pro of the vaccinations for babies: The following facts speak for vaccinations, even at the tender age of two months:
- Early inoculation prevents diseases that can take a particularly severe course in the very young. If a baby or older child is not vaccinated and becomes infected with Haemophilus influenza, for example, in serious cases it can lead to a severe brain inflammation with fatal consequences. Even if the inflammation of the brain is survived, serious complications can occur, for example the child can remain severely disabled.
- Another strong argument for vaccination is the eradication of diseases.
For example, thanks to the polio vaccination, polio has been eradicated in Europe for years. However, due to unvaccinated children, rare cases of polio have reappeared in Denmark in recent years.
- Another reason to vaccinate children is that there is no other alternative but to take the risk that the child will get infected with the bacteria/viruses and get sick.
Vaccinations also have their side effects.There are more frequent, but harmless reactions and very rare, dangerous to life-threatening side effects. The more common side effects include localized vaccination reactions around the injection site such as redness, swelling and painfulness of the affected area.
Spots on the skin, known as marbling of the skin, can also occur depending on the vaccination and tolerance. In the area around the puncture site, there may also be swelling of lymph nodes, but this is not dramatic. In addition, flu-like symptoms such as a rise in body temperature, i.e. fever, chills, headaches, aching limbs, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, etc.
may occur for a short period of time. All these reactions are harmless and disappear on their own after some time. With the MMR vaccination (mumps, measles, rubella), an outbreak of the so-called vaccination measles can occur after about seven to 12 days.
This is the rash typical of measles, but it is neither dangerous nor contagious. When exactly the possible side effects of a vaccination start depends on the type of vaccine used. A basic distinction is made between live and dead vaccines.
The live vaccines contain living bacteria or viruses, but these cannot cause disease because they are attenuated. They are therefore also called attenuated vaccines. Since the body needs some time to actively fight these living bacteria or viruses, it takes up to two weeks for the first side effects such as fever to appear. With dead vaccines, which only consist of components of bacteria or viruses, the possible side effects occur within the next three days after the vaccination.
