Preschool immunisations - a guide to vaccinations for 9 to 12 months old

Health is at the centre of every government’s agenda. Epidemics take a lot of lives and cost the nation a lot of money to manage. That is why governments find it to be in the best interest of the nation to vaccinate its citizens. To improve compliance, most national or state or local governments require children to be up to date with their vaccinations before being accepted into public schools starting from crèche. By requiring all children to be vaccinated the government reduces the risk of cross infection between the children.

You have seen how children in creches often give each other the flu. It only takes one infected child to spread the infection to other children and the kids do get really sick sometimes. Imagine if that happens with something as serious as whooping cough or tuberculosis! That can be the beginning of an epidemic in the whole neighbourhood. This is the reason why all governments have made vaccination mandatory.

You do not want to have any problem when the time comes for your child to creches. The preschool in your neighbourhood might turn your child away if you have not kept up with the vaccinations. Creches have a duty to protect children and protecting them from serious diseases that your unvaccinated child might bring is a major duty. Therefore make sure that you are up to date with your child’s vaccinations. Here are the vaccinations for babies between the age of 9 months and 12 months.

MMR vaccine: The first dose is given between 12 months and 15 months to protect your baby against measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles).

The MenB booster is given at 12 months to protect your baby against the meningococcal disease. This is the same vaccine that your child got when they were two months and four months of age.

After 12 months your baby will require a few more shots for various diseases. Again these differ from country to country. Make sure you know when your baby must get the shots and put a reminder in your Jinga Life.

There has been a lot of controversy in recent years about vaccinations. First, Andrew Wakefield and his 12 colleagues published in the Lancet their research findings linking MMR (measles, mumps and rubella vaccine) to autism in 1998. The report was disproved but a 2014 survey found that one third of parents of children less than 18 years still believe that vaccines can cause autism. In Ireland the HPV vaccine is also being questioned while parents question the sheer number of vaccines and the timing. For example American babies receive 27 doses of 13 diseases in the first 13 months. Some parents are concerned about the ingredients in the vaccines and they feel brushed off when they voice their concerns to doctors. Read more here.

Skepticism among parents is a healthy development because if more parents voice their concerns, manufacturers will develop safer vaccines as was done in Japan. Instead of worrying about the negatives that you hear about vaccines, remember that only a few incidents (less than 1 in a million) will result in any severe reaction. Also, be happy that manufacturers are being forced to relook at their ingredients and they will make an effort to manufacture safer vaccines.

We mentioned earlier that each country has its own schedule of baby vaccinations. What happens is that when you travel to certain parts of the world you may be expected to get even more vaccines to protect yourself against local infections in the area that you are visiting. A visit to certain parts of Africa will require you to get a vaccine against yellow fever, for example. Also, if you emigrate or decide to work overseas, your baby might need more vaccine shots in order to comply with the country which you are going to visit.

Have you joined Jinga Life yet? As a mom you are the Jinga (or protector) of your family. You are the one in charge of your family’s health. When you join Jinga Life you benefit from sharing experiences with other moms and you can maintain each family member’s health record on the platform. For your baby this is the right time to start recording doctor’s appointments, all the major illnesses, vaccinations, accidents, medications and developmental milestones. You will never again forget an incident or an appointment. The medical record is permanent and it is updated from anywhere in the world. So moving across the world will never again mean losing your health records. Try Jinga Life for free for 6 months!