Babies are constantly learning through experiences and challenges. The same is true for their immune systems. Throughout the day, their immunes system encounters thousands of germs from the air they breathe, the things they touch, and, you guessed it, all the things they put in their mouth. Their immune system is amazing at learning to identify and fight off most germs that cause problems. However, just like a baby wouldn’t be able to solve an algebra problem, their immune systems aren’t ready to handle some of the more serious diseases. This is why it’s so important to train their immune system with vaccines.

Vaccines take a small number of antigens, the parts of germs that cause the body’s immune system to go to work, to teach the immune system how to attack the deadly germs. Since the vaccine doesn’t use the whole germ, there are fewer negative reactions. It also only takes a tiny fraction of the number of antigens babies encounter every day to train the immune system. In fact, the number of diseases babies can be protected from is increasing and the number of antigens used to train their immune system is decreasing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 years ago, vaccines used 3,000 antigens to protect against eight diseases by age 2. Today, vaccines use 305 antigens to protect against 14 diseases by age 2.

If you’ve ever been concerned about too many vaccines overwhelming a baby’s immune system, don’t. The baby’s got this. If their immune system can handle the playground, it is more than capable of handling the small number of antigens in the recommended vaccine schedule. There are a lot of worries as a parent, but worrying about a baby’s immune system not being able to handle their recommended vaccine doesn’t need to be one!

Listen to Dr. Paul Offit MD, talk about whether babies get too many vaccines in the video below.