Controversy in the Realm of Toddler and Infant Development

Controversy in the Realm of Toddler and Infant Development
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Controversy in the Realm of Toddler and Infant Development
Abstract
Vaccination has been a controversial topic in the field of the development of infants and toddlers. Although it was introduced to prevent the spread of various diseases, some people hesitate and criticize this exercise by saying that several vaccines are not safe for children. For instance, opponents of vaccination assert that the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is associated with autism. As such, many individuals in the UK and other countries have lost confidence in some drugs due to spreading rumors about their safety concerns. However, these people fail to see how vaccines eradicate life-threatening diseases such as polio and smallpox. Vaccination saves the lives of about three million people every year. In particular, it is the cheapest way of eliminating various chronic diseases that might cause disabilities. Children who are vaccinated are in a better position since they have a strong immune system. The paper focuses on the controversy of vaccination in the realm of toddler and infant development.
Although the benefits of immunization or vaccination outweigh the demerits, vaccination remains controversial even today. Some parents in different parts of the world believe that vaccines are not good for their toddlers or infants, which is the reason why they avoid them. In some parts of Brazil and Pakistan, a small proportion of the population has a belief that vaccination has adverse impacts on toddlers and that those who become immunized has a high likelihood of becoming autistic. However, such beliefs are not supported by proper scientific evidence, and they are misleading to any parent who fails to present their children for vaccination. Researches are conducted by scientists and various organizations to ensure that vaccines do not have side effects that might hinder the physical and psychological development of toddlers. For this reason, vaccination is one of the controversial topics in the sphere of infant and toddler development, and it will be the primary subject that this paper focuses on in its entirety.
Governments, health institutions, and non-governmental corporations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) are always in the frontline in the public awareness campaigns involving the importance of childhood vaccination (Ali, Ahmad, Khan, Ali, Akbar, & Hussain, 2019). Jessica Kaufman et al. (2018) assert that early childhood immunization saves the lives of about three million children every year (Kaufman et al., 2018). Some of the common vaccines that are administered to toddlers are significant since they prevent them from getting polio, tuberculosis, mumps, rubella, smallpox, measles, and Haemophilus influenza. Although not all children become vaccinated as required by the physicians, parents are held responsible for any health problem that might affect their children’s health due to the failure of immunization. The article by Kaufman et al. shows the significance of vaccination and emphasizes educational interventions and face-to-face communication to assist parents in understanding the importance o...