Vaccines your child needs to prevent serious illness
Vaccine shots protect children from serious diseases. Your child should have vaccine shots at 2, 4, 6, 12-15 and 18-24 months to stay healthy. It’s best to get them at each well-child visit. Here is a list of diseases vaccine shots help prevent:
- Rotavirus causes a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting in kids ages 6-24 months. Most kids need to go to the hospital to get better.
- Diphtheria can cause trouble breathing and heart problems.
- Tetanus (also called “lockjaw”) can cause severe and painful muscle spasms. It occurs after a cut or wound lets the germ into your child’s body.
- Pertussis (also called “whooping cough”) can make a baby cough so hard and long that it makes it hard to eat or breathe. The cough can last for weeks. Babies catch it from adults or older kids. About half of babies with this must go to the hospital.
- Haemophilus influenza type B (also called “Hib”) causes tissues on the brain to swell. It can lead to blood infections, hearing loss or speech problems.
- Chicken pox causes a fever and itchy blisters all over the body. Some kids get skin infections, pneumonia or bleeding problems.
- Hepatitis B infects the liver.
- Measles cause a high fever, cough, runny nose, sore eyes and rash. It can infect the brain and lead to death.
- Mumps is seen most often in kids. It causes swelling under the jaw. It can lead to swelling in the brain or spinal cord, or hearing loss.
- Rubella causes fever, swelling in the neck, a skin rash and sore and swollen joints. Babies born with rubella can have heart disease, be blind or deaf.
- Pneumococcal bacteria are spread from person to person through close contact. It causes blood infections, pneumonia and meningitis in children.
- Polio can cause paralysis in children. This means they can’t move their arms or legs. Polio can make it hard to breathe because it paralyzes the muscles needed to breathe.
- Hepatitis A is a liver disease. It can make your child very sick. Their eyes or skin may turn yellow. Many kids have to go to the hospital.
More information For more about when to get vaccine shots, check out our
Preventive Health Care Guidelines.
Other good sources of information are:
Topics: Preventive care, Children's health
