Health hubs / Children's health: education
Vaccines: the basics
How the schedule works and what the largest safety studies found.
Talk to your pediatrician. This section is education only and does not replace your child's medical care. Doses for children are only quoted from official guidance (AAP, NIH ODS, WHO).
The schedule
CDC publishes the child and adolescent immunization schedule, and the AAP publishes guidance for parents [1][2]. Recommendations are updated over time, so ask your pediatrician which schedule applies to your child and how to catch up on missed doses.
Safety and autism
A meta-analysis of studies including more than 1.2 million children found no association between vaccines and autism [3].
Sources
- CDC, Child and adolescent immunization schedule. www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/imz-schedules/child-adolescent-age.html
- AAP HealthyChildren.org, Immunizations. www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/immunizations/Pages/default.aspx
- Taylor et al. 2014, Vaccine. doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085
DOIs verified against Crossref and official pages checked on 2026-10-15.