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. Here's how . . . This is called immunity.
Newborn babies are immune to many diseases because they have antibodies they got from their mothers.
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 before real germs invade. If left totally to chance, your baby's first exposure to a disease may be from a germ too strong for your baby to fight. That's why before parents had vaccines for their children, many babies and young children died from infectious diseases like whooping cough, measles, and diphtheria.