A Shot in the Arm

This article supports Family Health Lesson 10 of the Relief Society Homemaking Curriculum

With the exception of the common cold, the usual illnesses that many of us associated with childhood have almost disappeared. Depending on your generation, you may remember diphtheria, mumps, measles, whooping cough, and polio as part of the hazards of childhood. You may not remember that in some children these diseases were serious, causing brain damage, crippling, or death. Today it is different. Immunization campaigns have virtually eliminated polio, whooping cough, and diphtheria as threats in the developed countries of the world. Measles and mumps are being brought under control. Only chicken pox remains as the last significant “childhood disease,” because there is no vaccine yet available.

If these diseases are no longer prevalent in our communities, why immunize our young? Because the number of cases of measles, German measles, diphtheria, and mumps have increased rather than decreased in the past year. Parents are becoming lax in having their children immunized at an early age, believing that such procedures can wait until admission to school or can be ignored entirely because the diseases are no longer important. When such an attitude prevails, the preschool child remains susceptible to these illnesses, which are still circulating in our communities and are still serious threats to life. Children need protection from these diseases, and they need it as infants and young children.

Specifically, infants should receive immunization against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, and polio; toddlers need vaccine for measles, German measles (rubella), and mumps. Your physician or public health clinic will give you a schedule for your child pointing out when boosters are needed. Boosters for diphtheria and tetanus are needed periodically all through adult life.

Smallpox vaccination is no longer recommended in the United States because this disease has been almost eradicated from the world.

Don’t forget to keep a record of each immunization and booster shot you and your children receive. Such records will be invaluable when your child starts school, when he goes to camp, when you move to another community or change doctors, when your child is exposed to a particular disease, when he goes on a mission to another country, and when you travel.

Maybe you were never immunized as a child and never caught any of these serious diseases; or, if you caught them perhaps you were not very ill. If so, you were lucky. Your child might not be. Parents are responsible for protecting their children’s health so that they may live full, productive lives. The inconvenience of a trip to the doctor’s office or clinic and the hurt from an injection are small prices to pay for protection that will last a lifetime. Suzanne Dandoy, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Community Health, Arizona State Health Department