Thread: Hep B vaccine

I was told by our paediatrician that babies don't start producing their own antibodies till they're 2-3 months of age.

Why are newborns injected with Hep B vaccines if their immune system can not be stimulated to produce antibodies?

I think she meant embryos don't produce antibodies until 2 or 3 months of age, as babies certainly do.

I think you must have misunderstood what the paediatrician was saying, beaver. Infants won't have much by way of their own circulating antibodies so soon after birth, but only because they haven't been exposed to many antigens yet. Their immune systems aren't non-functional, just naive.

it needs 6 months for permanent antibodies to be produced and fully function,so they give babies vaccine(to stimulate immune system)+"synthetic antibodies" to fight the virus if the mother was infected or in the countries where there is high incidence of HBV