Scary diseases vs. scary needles

A friend gave me a ride home from an out-of-town event the other day.

When we stopped for a cup of coffee, she happened to mention how tired her eyes got when she was driving.

'It's because of a bad case of measles I had as a child.'

I don't know about you, but I grew up at a time when measles were something parents no longer had to think about. The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine had made measles disappear. As a result, I'd grown up thinking of the that measles as a slightly nastier version of the chicken pox. I had no idea, until I became a mom and researched some of these issues myself, how serious some of the side effects of measles could be.

It only makes sense. If measles hadn't posed a threat to public health, no one would have bothered developing a measles vaccine. Ditto for the other vaccines that were developed to protect kids against even more devastating diseases.

Sometimes we like to kid ourselves into thinking that we no longer have to worry about these diseases: that they've been eradicated or that they can only be found in far-off countries. But as the world health experts like to remind us, in an era of global travel, an outbreak that poses a serious health threat to our children and our families may only be a plane ride away.

There aren't immunizations against every type of outbreak or disease, even though a number of new immunizations have been introduced in recent years. Talk to your child's doctor to find out whether she recommends them for your child. (Note: Immunization schedules vary from region to region within Canada.)

When I was a kid, I used to hate lining up for that needle at school. It was torture counting down the number of kids left in front of me until my rendezvous with pain. And, as a new mom, it wasn't much fun either taking my newborns to be jabbed with a needle. (As a first-time mom, I felt that pain at least as much as my baby did.)

National Immunization Awareness Week runs from April 25 to May 2. If you haven't had a chance to get all your questions about immunization answered, there's no better time. Call your family doctor (if you have one) or put in a call to your local health unit.