Why it’s important to vaccinate your infant for hepatitis B

As a family physician who owns her own private practice, I have the privilege of treating patients of all ages and life stages. I particularly enjoy delivering babies and caring for them as they grow up.

Infants are precious, and every parent I talk to wants to protect them as much as possible. One of the best ways to do that is with vaccines. However, you might have heard some confusing news about the hepatitis B vaccine recently. The reality is that vaccinating your newborn for hepatitis B is a low-risk way to help safeguard your child against an incurable and potentially serious disease.

What is hepatitis B?

Hepatitis B is a virus that can attack the liver. It causes liver inflammation, and chronic exposure to the virus can lead to liver cancer or liver failure. The virus is spread by bodily fluids and can be transmitted through blood, sexual contact or sharing needles. Pregnant patients can also spread the virus in utero to a baby.

You might not know if you have hepatitis B

Family physicians often call hepatitis B a “silent epidemic” because people often don’t know they have it until they are tested or develop another health issue later in life. Some of my pregnant patients have tested positive for hepatitis B during routine obstetric bloodwork and had no idea they were infected. That’s not uncommon, as the data shows that about half of U.S. adults with chronic hepatitis B don’t know they have it.

People infected with hepatitis B might not know they’re carrying the virus for a few key reasons. Primarily this is because the virus can lie dormant without symptoms for a long time, only emerging later in life or flaring up at the same time as another health issue. Additionally, hepatitis B has good staying power. Many viruses don’t survive more than 48 hours outside the body, but the hepatitis B virus can stay potent for up to a week outside the body.

Hepatitis B and children

There’s a common misconception that hepatitis B is “just” a sexually transmitted infection. That’s not true. A single drop of infected blood—on a washcloth, a toothbrush, a razor or anything else—has enough of the virus to infect others. And since so many folks do not know they are infected, it’s easier than you might think to get infected at school, day care or even with contact sports.

Why is the hepatitis B vaccine important?

Here’s the good news: Hepatitis B is totally preventable. For decades, we’ve had access to a safe, effective vaccine that can prevent infection. In 1991, the United States began recommending that all babies receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, and over 100 other countries also recommend the vaccine for newborns.

The vaccine is particularly important because there is no cure for hepatitis B. The only way to help protect your child from hepatitis B is the vaccine.

There are many possible outcomes if your child gets hepatitis B, and some are very serious. Liver failure is a possibility, which can result in death.

Pediatric vaccines are here to keep us protected at birth, and the hepatitis B vaccine has done just that. Before the 1991 vaccine recommendation, 18,000 children per year were diagnosed with hepatitis B as a new case. Since newborns started being vaccinated for the virus routinely, that’s dropped to 20 children per year. Extrapolate the data, and you get 90,000 deaths that have been prevented in just a few decades.

Your family physician is your trusted resource

Every parent wants to make the best decision for their child with the information available. Your family physician stays up to date on science-backed evidence about diseases and vaccines to help you make those decisions. We can talk you through any questions you might have about your or your family’s care and provide our scientific and medical expertise.

Treating parents and their children is one of my career joys. We all care about the success and health of our kids, and if we could bubble-wrap our babies, we would. While we can’t do that, I tell my patients that vaccines are the next best protection.

---