If It's Kindergarten, It Must Be Measles-Mumps-Rubella Time

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Kids require a dizzying array of immunizations before they enter adulthood, starting before they leave their birth hospital up until college.

It's quite a bit for parents to keep up with, both in terms of how much the shots can cost and how difficult it can be to know which needed vaccinations have been acquired.

Three mothers in Salem , Ore. , all said they consider immunization important for their children. But all had different ways -- and varying degrees of success -- of keeping up with which child had had the appropriate shots.

Pam Mullins, a record store manager, said monitoring her kids' shots was fairly easy. She has a 17-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son. "It was one of the things we needed to do before the kids entered school," she said. "I don't remember it being a big deal."

Her daughter plans to attend college and faces a few more vaccinations -- including one for meningitis -- before she goes away to school. Mullins isn't sure what's required but said her daughter would leave home fully up to date on her shots.

"I hadn't really thought about it yet," she admitted.

Lorena Conejo has four children -- a newborn and a 1-year-old, a 6-year-old, and an 8-year-old, and she said she keeps tabs on all her kids and all their shots.

"I'm pretty well organized," Conejo said. "I like to write the dates and times and keep up with it."

She also gets a hand from her pediatrician, who will call to remind her when each child is due for another vaccination. Her insurance covers all the shots, which also makes it easy to keep each child up to date.

Molly Barker admits she's "not very organized" when it comes to her 4-year-old son's shots, citing a lack of contact with her family doctor. "We're in the process of getting him back to see what he needs, because they don't really remind you," she said.

Barker said she weighed the pros and cons of immunizations before her son was born, after reading about health concerns regarding vaccines. "I do know people who haven't been immunized for anything, and they're 30, so it's something that I really debated," she said. "But, in the end, we decided that he really should get his shots."

The boy did get his shots at birth and some afterward. But Barker said she's lost track. "I think he's up to date, but I'm not really sure," she said.

All three mothers liked the idea that some researchers are looking into combining more vaccines into single shots, similar to the measles/mumps/rubella injection young children receive, to simplify the immunization schedule.

"That would be a lot better, especially for parents nowadays, where they both have to work, and there's so much to keep up with," Mullins said.

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