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Vaccines and Your Baby Video Series
In this video series, physicians at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia explain how vaccines work and how they are made. The video also describes several vaccines and the diseases they prevent. Families share their stories of children affected by vaccine-preventable diseases.
Videos in this Series
- Introduction: Vaccines and Your Baby
- Before the Chickenpox Vaccine
- How Vaccinations Cause Immunity to Infectious Diseases
- What is a Virus in the Body?
- NOW PLAYING
How the Chickenpox Vaccine Works - Why the Hepatitis B Vaccine Is Important
- Why the Pneumococcal Vaccine Is Important
- How the Hib Vaccine Has Helped Alleviate Meningitis
- What the DTaP Vaccine Is and Diseases It Prevents
- The MMR Vaccine Prevents Three Viruses
- The Importance of the Polio Vaccine
- Do Vaccines Have Side Effects?
- How are Vaccines Tested for Safety?
- Can Babies Handle Vaccines So Young?
Transcript: How the Chickenpox Vaccine Works
Kathleen Sullivan, MD: Here's how the chicken pox vaccine was made. The chickenpox virus was taken from a little boy with chickenpox in Japan in the 1960s. The chickenpox virus was then grown in specialized cells in the laboratory. As the virus got better and better at growing in the laboratory, it got worse and worse at growing in children. So the chickenpox vaccine represents the very best of two worlds. On the one hand, the vaccine virus doesn't grow very well in children, so it doesn't cause disease. On the other hand, the vaccine virus grows well enough to provide the shield of long-lasting immunity.
Christina L. Master, MD: He looks beautiful. You're doing a wonderful job with him.
The next vaccine that we're going to talk about is usually the first vaccine that babies get. It's given to prevent a common infection of the liver.
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