In the U.S., children typically receive vaccines from the time they are born through their teenage years. As you prepare to send your children back to school, it presents the perfect opportunity to make sure everyone is up-to-date on their vaccine schedule. The primary care providers at Access Health Clinic in Spring, TX, explain the important role immunizations play in the health of your children—and the general public—below.

Primary Care Providers Discuss the Importance of Vaccines for the Back-to-School Season

1. Prevent Disease in Your Child

Immunizations protect your child against deadly but preventable diseases like measles, mumps, and the flu. They work by exposing the body to small and controlled antigens, which gives the immune system a chance to build up antibodies to the disease. Then, should your child ever come into contact with these germs as a result of someone who wasn’t vaccinated, their body will be prepared to fend off the infection proactively.

When children aren’t vaccinated, on the other hand, their immune systems are often too weak to fight the diseases. Thus, coming into contact with rare but serious diseases like whooping cough and polio could have life-threatening consequences in unvaccinated children.  

2. Protect Other Children

Vaccines don’t just protect a single person from contracting these serious illnesses, but they actually help to control disease outbreak across an entire population. If every member of a society is vaccinated, the odds of a serious epidemic are extremely low. Thus, if you vaccinate your child, you’re also playing a role in preventing other children from getting sick. This also applies to vulnerable populations like the elderly and very young.  

3. Support Lifelong Wellness

Finally, vaccinating your child or young adult now will support their wellness later in life. For instance, the chickenpox virus can lay dormant and reactivate as shingles much later in life, but children who are vaccinated against chickenpox are far less likely to contract it. Likewise, the HPV vaccine can help keep your child cancer-free by protecting against cancers caused by the HPV infection.

If you need routine immunizations for your family members this back-to-school season, visit Access Health Clinic. No appointment is needed, and your children can even receive physicals for school or sports in the same convenient location. Learn more about the clinic’s services by visiting their website or call the primary care providers at (281) 251-8700.