It’s a known fact that new parents think about everything at least ten times over when making decisions involving their babies. Be it for picking the right toys or choosing the right environment, they need a trustworthy source, and rightfully so. So when it comes to something as important as infant immunizations and everything around their child’s health, their overthinking caps instantly come up.
Here’s when the duty of a doctor or a pediatrician doubles up. Along with children, doctors also have to try making the infant immunization process easier for the parents. As a healthcare professional, you always need to be on your toes to maintain this trustworthy relationship, and here are a few tips that you could make use of to help you along the way.
Infant immunizations are never easy, which is why it helps to know how to make the process easier.
How Can You Help Parents Prep For The Immunization Process?
The vaccine is in and out of the body in a minute, but the anxiousness around it starts way before the process. So even before you get to the child, it’s the parents who need to be prepped and kept well-informed. Communication is the key here, and you ideally shouldn’t compromise on that because it can make the infant immunization process easier.
- Make sure to listen to all the concerns parents have about their infant’s health and immunization, and acknowledge them in a non-confrontational manner. By allowing parents to openly express and discuss their concerns, the willingness to accept pediatric views would also increase.
- Provide all the important information to the parents, reaffirm their correct beliefs about immunization and make sure to clarify or modify their misconceptions. Discuss the benefits of infant immunizations and how they can help secure the health of their child even in the long run.
- Help parents understand how their child could be prepared before immunization. Also, keep them informed about the common side-effects that could arise after the infant takes the shot. Let them know that these reactions are extremely common and their child would be fine after some time.
- Babies easily follow their parents’ cues. If the parent is anxious or shows nervousness, it’s likely for the child to also feel scared and become hyper. As a doctor, you can first help the parents get over their worries and apprehensions. This helps the parent, as well as their child, remain calm during the vaccination, escaping the likelihood of experiencing panic mode.
Once you reassure the parents, you’ll have done more than half of your job. A good and reliable rapport between the parents and the doctor definitely goes a long way in making the immunization process easier.
Making Immunizations Easier For The Infants
Infants or even toddlers are too small to understand the concept of vaccination, but what they most definitely understand or experience is the pain they associate with vaccines. As a doctor, you’ll be using all possible techniques to minimize the pain during vaccination, but you can also ensure a few other steps to make the process easier.
It’s a good idea to keep a few toys and books handy for your tiny patients.
For instance, you can set up a calm and soothing environment in the vaccination area. You can play some soft music around the child or keep a few toys for them to play with. This next point goes without saying and you’re likely doing this already, but don’t forget to properly sanitize the toys before and after appointments. This helps with clinical infection prevention. Also, try keeping everything you need for the process ready before the child arrives, so that the entire process can be done quickly and efficiently. Finally, make sure you communicate with the patient in a way that eases their nervousness.
Along with you taking the efforts, also encourage parents to keep the infant distracted when giving the shot. Let them grab their child’s attention with a toy or by playing around with their hands. The infant could also be breastfed, if that’s a possibility, during the process. It will keep the child distracted and would also minimize the pain sensation to quite some extent.
Things To Keep In Mind
- Making the infant immunization process easier can get a little tricky for healthcare professionals. Since every child is different, you’ll have to be ready to deal with it all.
- Managing things around hyper or stressed parents isn’t easy for doctors, but keeping your cool and helping them prepare for it beforehand will make the immunization process a lot easier for all.
- Maintaining immunization records for every child is absolutely necessary. And it’s not just the duty of parents to do so, but as a responsible health care professional, it’s yours too. You can keep track on paper, but digitization of the records will also help you tons. It’s less time-consuming, more efficient, and accessible at any point in time.
- You don’t need to look up different sources for efficient immunizations schedule records – just check the ImmunifyMe app and that will set it all up for you. There’s no chance of forgetting appointments or losing immunization data as the app stores everything on the cloud. You can also get timely notifications for all upcoming vaccinations. This one’s a blessing for the doctors as well as parents as it becomes a one-stop platform for maintaining all health records of the little ones.
Conclusion
Immunizations are important for everyone, but even more for infants. Naturally, all new parents are anxious about their child’s immunization; that’s when reaching out to their doctor comforts them the most. As a doctor, you also need to make the infant immunization process easier for the little ones. After all, the parents, as well as the child, trust you the most, after themselves, with their health.
FAQs On Infant Immunizations
How Do You Give A Child An Injection?
Children are normally given intramuscular injections. Apply Chloraprep on the injection site and prep the syringe. Hold the syringe like a dart or a pencil between the thumb and first finger of your other hand. Insert the needle straight up and tilted at a 90-degree angle, into the clean injection site. Gently push on the plunger until all the medicine is injected and then take the needle and syringe out.
How Can You Make Vaccines Less Painful?
Whether it’s a child or an adult, no one enjoys taking injections. As a doctor, you’ll be taking all precautions to make infant immunizations easier and at the same time, also try to make them less painful. To minimize the pain of vaccines, you have to make sure the medicine is at room temperature. Always use a new needle and get the air bubbles out of the syringe. Let the cleaning alcohol at the injection site dry off completely and then stick the needle in quickly.
How Long After Vaccine Will Baby Be Fussy?
Mild fever, fussiness, and a slight change in appetite are all common reactions of babies after vaccination. They can last for around 48 hours post-vaccine, or longer, depending on the dosage and the patient’s health.
Which Two Muscles Are Used For Infant Injections?
The anterolateral thigh is the preferred site for intramuscular injections in infants. It’s injected at the junction of the upper and middle thirds of the vastus lateralis thigh muscle. Another muscle used for infant injections is the deltoid muscle which is the top, upper part of the arm.