How do immunizations work?
When you get an infection, your body reacts by producing substances called antibodies. These antibodies fight the disease and help you to get over the illness. They usually stay in your system, even after the disease has gone, and protect you from getting the same disease again. This is called immunity. Newborn babies are immune to many diseases because they have antibodies they have gotten from their mothers. But this immunity doesn’t last. It wears off during 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. The germs that cause disease are made into vaccines. These vaccines can be given to children as shots or as drops to be swallowed. Vaccines fool the body into thinking it is under attack by disease, and the body reacts by producing antibodies. These antibodies stay in the body. Then, if the child is exposed to the actual disease, he or she is pro
Getting an immunization is like giving your body’s immune system a photo of some bad guys. In this case, the bad guys are germs that can hurt or even kill you if your immune system doesn’t recognize them quickly enough. It works like this: in every shot there are little pieces of germs (doctors call these pieces antigens) that have been killed or weakened. These antigens are like a photo of a killer’s face, and when your immune system sees these antigens, it learns exactly what these germs look like. Later, when you run into these dangerous germs on the street, your immune system will recognize them immediately, and will block or kill them before they have a chance to hurt you. Without the vaccine, your immune system’s response can be too slow to protect you. So, just like giving a policeman accurate photos of a dangerous criminal, immunizations help your body’s natural immune system to be able to react quickly and effectively, and keep you from getting sick–or worse.
