How Vaccines Work For Information on specific vaccines As a parent, your children's health and safety are always on your mind. They are meant to prevent everything from minor illnesses to tragic death. Vaccines help your baby's body prepare to fight deadly diseases. Here's how . . . This is called immunity.
Newborn babies are immune to some diseases because they have antibodies they got from their mothers.
But this immunity does not last. It wears off in the first year of life. Fortunately, we can keep children immune to many diseases, even after they lose their mothers' antibodies. We do this by vaccinating them against those diseases. Vaccines give your baby's immune system the chance to practice and make protective antibodies before real germs invade.