Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospitals
  • Immunisation in India is being carried out under The Universal Immunisation program. The Indian Association of Pediatrics (IAP) also has its own schedule which includes optional and newer vaccines. The IAP schedule can be viewed at
http://www.iapindia.org/page.php?id=129

summary schedule is as follows:

Age Vaccines
Birth BCG, hepatitis B, OPV0
6 weeks DTwP/DTaP + Hib + Hepatitis B + IPV-1, Rotavirus-1*, PCV-1
10 weeks DTwP/DTaP + Hib + Hepatitis B + IPV-2, Rotavirus-2*,PCV-2
14 weeks DTwP/DTaP + Hib + Hepatitis B + IPV-3, Rotavirus-3*, PCV-3
6 months Typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV), Influenza-1
7 months Influenza-2
9 months MMR-1
12 months Hepatitis-A 1**
15 months MMR-2, Varicella-1
16–18 months DTwP/DTaP + Hib + IPV-4, PCV-4 Varicella-2, Hepatitis-A 2**
2 years Influenza***
3 years Influenza***
4 years Influenza***
5 years MMR 3, DTwP/DTaP + IPV5
10 years Tdap/ Td*****, HPV-1****
10½ years HPV-2****
  • Growth charts are used to assess if the child’s weight, height and head size over a period of time to monitor adequate growth. There are many different growth charts across the world and different ones for boys and girls. The World Health Organization’s growth charts are available at
https://www.who.int/toolkits/child-growth-standards

When a child deviates from his or her previously established growth curve, investigation into the cause is generally required. For instance, a decrease in the growth velocity may indicate the onset of a chronic illness.

  • Infants may sleep up to 16 hours a day. But most won’t sleep through the night without a feeding until 4 months of age. School-aged children may sleep 10 hours a day. Their sleep may be disturbed by an illness or fever. Consult the doctor if your child has a fever and is sluggish when waking up.
  • When a child has recurrent/multiple seizures the condition is called as epilepsy. This means the occurence of a single seizure or of febrile seizures does not mean the diagnosis of epilepsy.
  • MYTHS : Epilepsy is not contagious. It is not a psychological disorder
  • Some children have febrile seizures. Febrile seizures are a special category in which seziures occur mainly between 6 months to 5 years with fever, and no other identifiable cause. It is a simple, self remitting condition and most of them do not require long term medications.
  • Obesity is having excessive body weight due to accumulation of fat, that may lead to health problems. Obesity in children are becoming more common in India due to availability of fatty food and lack of exercise in children.
  • If children eat more calories than they burn by doing exercise, the excess energy accumulates in the body as fat. This causes obesity.
  • If your child has high grade fever, repeated vomiting or diarrhoea, then he needs medical attention. An infant who is refusing to take feed, crying excessively or looking very lethargic also needs to be seen by a doctor. If you child has fast breathing, difficulty in breathing or noise while breathing he/she may be having asthma or pneumonia.
  • Breastmilk gives your baby everything she needs to thrive for the first six months of her life. It helps your baby to fight infection and develop good bacteria in her digestive system. She gets all the nutrition she needs from your milk to grow well, while also being protected from harmful bacteria.
  • Breastmilk contains antibodies from you that help to protect your baby against gastroenteritis,colds, chest infections and ear infections.
  • It helps you to feel close to one another.
  • It can be a great comfort to your older baby when she’s too ill to eat, but still able to feed. Breastmilk can also help your baby to recover from illness more quickly. Once your baby starts solids at around six months, you can carry on breastfeeding her.