Vaccinations are essential to your child’s health

Babies who have spent ten months in their mother’s womb face different vaccinations from the moment they are born. At birth, a baby’s first contact with a thin needle is the hepatitis B vaccination.

There are countless vaccinations that babies need until they reach adulthood, including hepatitis B, which is the first thing they get when they take their first steps into the world. Vaccinations build immunity in advance to protect babies from various diseases. So, if you are a parent with a child, you may not have a question or two about vaccination.

The question for parents is whether it is necessary to have optional vaccinations, where individuals choose and implement vaccinations for certain diseases without state support, in addition to the mandatory vaccinations imposed by the state. From the moment a baby is born, parents’ worries and questions begin. There is no end to parental curiosity, such as which BCG vaccine to choose and which is best for Japanese encephalitis between inactivated and live vaccines.

In general, mandatory national vaccinations are basic vaccinations recommended by the country to prevent diseases with common and serious complications, and from this year, vaccinations are available for free not only in public health centers but also in medical institutions.

Other optional vaccinations are vaccines that are not included in the mandatory vaccinations designated by the government among the vaccinations for infants and young children, and currently include pneumococcal, rotavirus, and hepatitis A.

Now let’s answer the questions about vaccination that parents want to know.

Unlike compulsory vaccinations supported by the state, optional vaccinations are sometimes hesitant because parents have to pay for them at their own expense. Pneumococci and rotavirus are common diseases in babies and young children, and rotavirus enteritis, a diarrheal disease in babies and young children, is one of the most common diseases, affecting 9 out of 10 babies and young children under 5 years of age.

In the case of rotavirus, it is an optional vaccination that requires 2 to 4 doses depending on the type. There are quite a few parents who are worried about the cost that is currently required. Vaccination gained up to 6 months after birth costs up to 1 million, which is inevitably economically burdensome. Optional vaccination is classified as other vaccinations in Korea due to problems such as budget.

If you need to have an optional vaccination, the cost varies slightly depending on each medical institution, so it is better to use the Internet to choose a cheaper place. Seoul Children’s Hospital, Population Health Association, and National Medical Center are representative institutions among places where you can get selective vaccination at low cost.

The injectable (intradermal) vaccine injects medicine containing tuberculosis bacteria into the skin, leaving scars as a normal process of the body’s immune response to fight the tuberculosis bacteria. However, because the newborn’s skin is thin, the drug can penetrate into the muscle layer under the dermis. At this stage, the tuberculosis immune response occurs normally, but there are side effects such as inflammation of the lymph nodes sometimes occurs.

Thus, when an injection with several short needles is pressed against the baby’s arm, a vaccine made so that the medicine only enters the skin is released in Japan, and transdermal vaccination is possible in Japan and Korea.

Then why do they call it for public health centers (for intradermal use) or for hospitals (for transdermal use)? The intradermal injection is in ampoule form, so 15 to 20 children can be vaccinated based on one ampoule. Therefore, vaccinate according to the schedule at the public health center. In addition, there are cases where intradermal vaccination is performed according to the schedule in general medical institutions, but in practice, intradermal vaccination is rarely performed in general hospitals.

Whether for transdermal or intradermal use, scarring can remain. Most transdermal vaccinations rarely cause scarring, but some children do.

The question most parents have about vaccination is whether they will get sick after being vaccinated. What is certain is that being vaccinated does not guarantee that you will never get the disease. However, when exposed to the disease after vaccination, it suffers mildly and passes, so it is good to get the vaccination without missing the timing.

Among the diseases that occur frequently, rotavirus is so common that 95% of children are infected by the age of 5, and it occurs most often between the ages of 6 and 24 months. Chickenpox can also develop quickly in places where people live in groups such as day care centers and nursery schools. So even if you have been vaccinated against chicken pox, you can still get chicken pox.

Flu is also difficult to prevent up to 100%, but is known to be effective at preventing 70-90%.

There are so many vaccinations that a child needs to be vaccinated before their first birthday. However, there is a high probability that there will be variables in the vaccination schedule. It is common for a child to become ill suddenly.

The biggest obstacle to vaccination is fever. Vaccination is usually given when a person is not suffering from a high fever or showing mild cold symptoms. Even during the use of antibiotics, vaccination is not significantly affected.

However, if your child has a high fever or does not feel well, consult a pediatrician and postpone the vaccination for a few days.

Flu vaccination is performed after 6 months of age, and before vaccination, medical institutions ask for allergies when filling out a preliminary examination table. This is because people with an egg allergy can experience anaphylaxis (urticaria with swelling of the mouth and pharynx, difficulty breathing, hypotensive shock, etc.) differently than other people.

The drug used for flu vaccination is originally produced by culturing eggs, and if an allergic reaction to eggs occurs, it can cause an allergic phenomenon during flu vaccination.

In this case, there is a risk of getting the flu vaccination, so you need to be careful. If you have an allergy, it is recommended that you receive the first vaccination in a hospital where emergency measures are available and observe it for at least 30 minutes. For this reason, it is recommended that children who show allergic symptoms after eating eggs consult a doctor before vaccination.

Recently, there are many parents who travel abroad with their young children, and vaccination is essential before traveling abroad with their children.

In particular, Southeast Asia is one of the most visited destinations, and when traveling to Southeast Asian countries, families with children inevitably worry about whether or not they want to be vaccinated. Experts say there is no need to be vaccinated when traveling with children, mainly to holiday destinations or city center areas. However, if you go to an area with a lot of forest or jungle, you must be vaccinated.

To prevent malaria, it is recommended to take prophylactic antibiotics from 1 week before departure to 4 weeks after return. However, as the incidence of infectious diseases varies from country to country, make sure you have the necessary vaccinations before travelling.

Visit the Foreign Travel Disease Information Center to check epidemic infectious diseases and vaccination information by country.

In the case of the first child, there are many parents who want to vaccinate on the designated date, and from the second or third child, it is not a big deal even if it is delayed for several days.

In the case of vaccination that requires multiple additional vaccinations, vaccination a little later than the vaccination date does not affect the formation of immunity. However, it is good to keep the standard vaccination interval because immunity is not well formed when vaccinated in advance.

Vaccination is the most effective and safest way to prevent infectious diseases, but it can have unavoidable side effects. To this end, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention operates a system for reporting adverse reactions after vaccination.

However, the reporting range of adverse reactions is only available for nationally required vaccinations. For inquiries about reporting adverse reactions to vaccination, visit the Vaccination Helper website.