What should you do when your childs vaccination record is lost?

For some reason, you accidentally lost your child's vaccination record and are confused about what to do. Let's work together with aFamilyToday Health to find the appropriate solutions to this problem.

A vaccination book is a document that is usually required when a child enters kindergarten or elementary school. This booklet mainly helps you keep track of your child's vaccinations. Unfortunately, you accidentally lost track records while your child had received most of the needed vaccines. What should you do? Does your child need to be vaccinated again? The information below can help answer this question!

"Locate" the child's vaccination book

Chances are you lost your child's vaccination notebook when you moved. In this case, to find the book again, you can:

Contact the child care center, elementary school or anyone who may have kept a copy of the vaccination record to see if they still have it.

Visit the pediatrician's office to see if you forgot the notebook when taking your baby.

If your pediatrician has moved or retired, contact the local health unit where you live to find out where old records are kept. Doctors need to keep medical records for a certain period of time.

Go to the commune health station where you live to see if your child's vaccination records are kept.

What should you do if you can't find the vaccination book?

If you cannot find your child's immunization record at all, have your child re-vaccinated according to the age-appropriate immunization schedule. When you are not sure whether your child has been vaccinated, have him or her repeat it again. In fact, re-vaccination of MMR, chickenpox, Hib, hepatitis B or polio vaccine is not harmful for children at all.

Do a vaccine test

Another solution when you lose your child's vaccination record is to have your child have an immunological serum test with a blood test to see if he or she has been fully vaccinated. Testing can determine if your baby has been vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus. Children who have received some vaccines also need these tests.

Children can still get the Hib, chickenpox , polio, or pertussis vaccine again even with this test. Fortunately, your child only needs one dose of Hib vaccine after the first 15 months and they 5 years of age and older will not have to get it again. Therefore, if your child is of school age and has a positive result for all of the above tests, then there may not be a need to re- vaccinate MMR , hepatitis A, hepatitis B, IPV or Varivax. again. Your pediatrician will write down a statement that your child is immune to vaccines that test positive from the test and that he or she does not need to be re-vaccinated.

However, compared with repeat vaccinations, this method still has drawbacks. A typical disadvantage is that you will have to bear the full cost of the test because the insurance won't cover it. If your child's antibody levels are too low, he or she will still need other shots in addition to blood tests.

What should you do to avoid losing your child's vaccination record?

One of the most common ways to prevent the loss of a child's vaccination record is to make at least 2 copies of the vaccination record and keep it updated every time your child gets vaccinated: 1 in the home, in place It won't burn or get caught in water and a notebook is kept in a safe or sent to a family member. In addition, you can also take a photo of the vaccination record after each new injection to prevent it from being lost.