Vaccinations provide clear advantages to children and vaccinations are generally recommended also to children with congenital or acquired heart disease. The main benefits of vacinations are that the response of the immune system and the symptoms triggered by the vaccination are considerably milder and complications are fewer than those experienced when the real-life infection is acquired.
Vaccinations are generally not recommended in the 3-4 weeks immaediately before or after a procedure or operation as they cause fever and general malaise which could either lead to the cancellation of the procedure or may wrongly alarm your child’s medical team about post-operative infective complications.
Some children with heart disease may not receive some type of vaccines where the germ (bacteria or virus) has been weackened but is still alive and not completely inactivated. Those children are those with some type of immune problems associated with congenital heart defects (Di Geroge syndrome) or transplantation. Follow the link for a list of conditions where vaccination might not be indicated.
