It is believed that administering medications such as paracetamol is a good measure to prevent the rise in fever and discomfort caused by vaccines in newborns, but a group of researchers from the University of California, San Francisco recommend vaccinating the baby in the afternoon to sleep better and thus minimize the adverse effects of vaccines.
Vaccination is an invasive procedure for the child so everything we can do to make the trance better is welcome. As it is recommended to breastfeed the baby to improve the response to pain, experts say that sleeping in the hours following the application of the vaccine is important, since "Sleep is a sign of a response to the vaccine and it is important to maximize it".
The scientists conducted a study randomly assigning 70 or two-month-old babies the use or not of drugs before immunization.
Babies received several vaccines, including those that act against pneumococcus, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP), influenza type B, polio and hepatitis B, which make up the vaccination schedule recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (CDC).
Although 25 infants were given a dose of acetaminophen before vaccines, most participants ended up receiving the medication at the time of application or immediately after to reduce fever or discomfort.
Most babies slept much more 24 hours after applications than the day before them: 13 hours, compared to less than 12 hours, respectively. And babies vaccinated after 13.30 tended to sleep more than those vaccinated before that time.
Children vaccinated in the afternoon slept 1.5 hours more than the day before, while babies vaccinated in the morning rested just half an hour more than the previous day.
Since prolonging sleep is beneficial for the immune response of vaccines and for alleviating their side effects, if you are going to vaccinate the baby, try to do it in the afternoon to facilitate increased sleep within 24 hours of vaccination.
