How Vaccines Work
It is amazing how a simple vaccine can create years of immunity.
Here’s how it works.
Vaccines provide a practice run.
Vaccines protect your child from disease by allowing their body to perform a “practice run” in protecting itself against germs. If and when the real version of the disease appears, their body has already built the defenses it needs. It’s ready to attack the germ and keep your child healthy.
Vaccines help build immunity safely.
When your child becomes sick, their body makes infection-fighting antibodies. Once they recover, these antibodies serve as “watchmen” for that particular disease. They remain prepared to fight the disease should it reappear. Vaccines trigger the same immune response but without causing illness. In a way, vaccines trick our bodies into thinking we’ve already had the disease. We build immunity safely, without getting sick. The fever, headache, or body aches some people have after getting vaccinated can be a sign that their immune system is working hard to build antibodies.
There are multiple ways vaccines are made:
- A live, but weakened form of the disease is used.
- An inactivated (killed) form of the disease is used.
- Part of a disease is used.
- Part of the disease’s genetic code is used.
If left totally to chance, your child’s first exposure to a disease may be from a germ too strong for their tiny body to fight. They could become very sick. Before we had vaccines, many kids were hospitalized or died as a result of infectious diseases. The same germs exist today, but parents now have the ability and choice to protect their children from them.