Although your parents may not be old enough to remember the tragedy that polio wrought, their own parents probably are not. This disease, now all but wiped out thanks to vaccinations, killed and paralyzed healthy young people in droves back in the 1940s and 1950s. When the vaccine finally came out, it was hailed as a miracle by grateful parents, and rightly so.

Whooping cough, too, was a child killer back in the day. Yet the disease has made a comeback, unfortunately, because parents have fallen prey to misinformation about vaccines. CDC records show that 50,000 cases of whooping cough occurred during 2012, killing 20 of the children who contracted the disease. In a recent edition, US News reported that these outbreaks could be directly traced to parents who did not vaccinate their children.

Children under three months of age were especially vulnerable. Because the disease is so deadly for newborn infants, pregnant women, too, pregnant women, too, should be vaccinated during their third trimester.