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Why does my child need routine vaccines?

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Common Question-caregiver helps child in playground

Vaccines help protect your child against diseases that can cause severe illness and even death. Missing or delaying vaccines puts your child at risk for illnesses you can prevent.source: 1

  • Vaccines can save your child’s life. Tetanus kills 1 out of every 10 people in the United States who get it, even with treatment.source: 2,source: 3 People who get meningococcal disease disease can die within hours.source: 4
  • Vaccines can keep your child out of the hospital. About 1 in 3 children 12 months and younger who get whooping cough will need to be hospitalized.source: 5 About 1 in 5 people who are unvaccinated and get infected with measles will end up in the hospital.source: 6
  • Vaccines can keep your child in school and learning. For chickenpox alone, children can miss about a week of school.source: 7

Vaccines safely train your child’s body to protect itself against these diseases.source: 8

Key Evidence

The vaccine schedule gives your child the best protection at the right time.source: 9 Vaccines are recommended before your child is most at risk for a disease and when their immune system will work best with the vaccine.source: 10,source: 11

The benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks.source: 12,source: 13 Vaccines prevent about 24 million cases of certain diseases every year in the United States.source: 14 The routine vaccination of children born between 1994 and 2023 is estimated to prevent more than:

  • 1 million deaths
  • 32 million hospitalizationssource: 15

Millions of children stay in school, enjoy their hobbies, and see family and friends thanks to vaccines.source: 14

Most children don’t have any serious side effects from vaccines.source: 16 Generally, if 1 million doses of a vaccine are given, only 1 or 2 people may have a severe allergic reaction.source: 16

Some children may have mild side effects after getting vaccinated.source: 1 The most common side effects, like a mild fever or soreness where the shot was given, usually go away quickly on their own.source: 17 Side effects can be a sign that the vaccine and your child’s body are working together to protect your child from disease.source: 18

A Balanced View

Most parents want a “balanced view” of vaccines. That means the facts: both benefits and possible risks. Sometimes, the facts are so overwhelming on one side, they might not seem balanced.

That is true for vaccines.

Decades of research supports the benefits of today’s vaccines, and scientists evaluate and monitor vaccines to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks.source: 8,source: 19 On the risk side of the equation, the diseases that vaccines prevent can be dangerous. They can even be deadly.

Sometimes the balanced view does not look balanced, but it is still the truth.

  • Vaccine-preventable diseases may be mild for most children, but there is no guarantee they will be for your child.source: 12 About 1 in 20 children with measles will get pneumonia. That is the leading cause of death from measles in children.source: 6
  • Most parents vaccinate their children.source: 20 It may seem like a lot of parents are concerned about vaccines. But the truth is 9 out of 10 parents vaccinate their children on time for kindergarten.source: 20

A Deeper Dive: Understanding the Risk of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Understanding risk can be tough. Let's look at two different diseases to better understand the concept of risk. Look at polio and whooping cough. Polio was once among the most feared diseases in the United States. In 1952 alone, poliovirus infected nearly 60,000 people.source: 21,source: 22 Thousands of people were forced to live in an iron lung—a large metal machine that helped them breathe—to stay alive.source: 23

  • Due to vaccines, the United States eliminated polio in 1979.source: 22
  • Polio has been eliminated from most of the world, but the disease still occurs in other parts of the world. source: 22
  • A case of polio did occur in the United States in 2022.source: 24 It only takes one person traveling internationally to bring polio into the United States.

Anyone who is not up to date with their polio vaccines is at risk of getting polio.source: 25

Don't think whooping cough is a big deal? This video shows an infant hospitalized with whooping cough struggling to breathe.

Back to the common questions

More information

Still have questions? Talk to your child’s doctor, nurse, or pharmacist.

Sources

  1. CDC: About Vaccines for your Children
  2. Immunize.org: Tetanus: Questions and Answers
  3. CDC: About Tetanus
  4. CDC: Meningococcal Disease Symptoms and Complications
  5. CDC: Symptoms of Whooping Cough
  6. CDC: Measles Symptoms and Complications
  7. CDC: Chickenpox Symptoms and Complications
  8. CDC: Reasons to Vaccinate
  9. CDC: Reasons to Follow CDC’s Recommended Immunization Schedule
  10. American Academy of Pediatrics: All About the Recommended Immunization Schedules
  11. HHS: Vaccines for Infants, Children, and Teens
  12. CDC: Questions Parents May Ask about Vaccines
  13. FDA: Vaccines Protect Children from Harmful Infectious Diseases
  14. Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics: Impact of Routine Childhood Immunization in Reducing Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States
  15. CDC: Health and Economic Benefits of Routine Childhood Immunizations in the Era of the Vaccines for Children Program — United States, 1994–2023
  16. HHS: Vaccine Side Effects
  17. CDC: Possible Side Effects from Vaccines
  18. NHLBI: Vaccine side effects signal their effectiveness
  19. FDA: Vaccine Development – 101
  20. CDC: MMWR Vaccination Coverage with Selected Vaccines and Exemption Rates Among Children in Kindergarten — United States, 2021–22 School Year
  21. History of Vaccines: The History of the Polio Vaccine
  22. CDC: Pink Book: Poliomyelitis
  23. The Ohio State University: Emerson Respirator or Iron Lung
  24. CDC: United States confirmed as country with circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus
  25. CDC: Polio Vaccination
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