Dr. Errol Douglas at Gold Pediatrics in Rockville, MD can provide immunizations for your child. These powerful preventative medicines can keep your child safe and minimize the risk of disease development. Here's what you need to know more about vaccines and the ways that they can protect your child from serious illness.

What Do Vaccines Do?

Vaccines are designed to prevent your child from catching dangerous diseases or minimizing their impact if they do get sick. They have a proven track record of preventing various sicknesses and help parents care for their children more effectively. Just as importantly, these vaccines can minimize the risk of problems with physical and emotional development that some diseases may cause in your child.

How Do They Work?

Vaccines are technically a dead version of a virus that is still active enough to cause an immune system reaction in your child's body. This reaction naturally produces antibodies that destroy the already dead virus. Once these antibodies are produced, they will stay active for many years or even for life, providing children from protection against various problematic diseases.

When Do My Children Need Them?

Children typically get immunizations at various points in their early maturation. For example, they may get multiple shots for meningitis when they are young to prevent this disease from developing. These treatments can help minimize the impact of a disease if a child does develop it or prevent them from getting it entirely. Our team can help you better understand these schedules.

Are Vaccines Safe?

Vaccines are a very safe way to fight against diseases and rarely cause side effects. Like all medical treatments, they are carefully tested in laboratory settings and adjusted to ensure that they cause no problematic results. In rare cases, a child may experience some pain at the injection site that goes away in a day or two. This pain is mild and should be easy to manage with over-the-counter treatments.

Let Us Help You

At Gold Pediatrics in Rockville, MD, Dr. Douglas and his team can provide immunizations for your children. Please call us at (301) 517-9710 if you have young children that you want to protect from various childhood diseases. We'll do what we can to ensure that they are safe.