Commentary: Preparing your child for the COVID-19 vaccine jab isn’t easy. Here’s how to do it

MELBOURNE: Your child’s experience of needles in their early years may impact how they feel about and react to subsequent vaccinations.

So it’s important to reduce the chance of a negative experience.

But what can parents do to help prepare their child for the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine or other injections?

FEAR OR PHOBIA?

Most children are fearful of needles. But for some children, this fear is more serious and can be defined as a needle phobia.

Needle phobia is a very scary and distressing response to the presence of or reaction to a needle, for example, to take blood or have an injection. The anxiety and fear are out of proportion to the threat, and people will avoid needles as much as possible.

In severe cases, the level of anxiety caused by just the sight of a needle may result in feelings of dizziness, nausea, increased sweatiness, loss of consciousness, and fainting.

Almost one in five children (19 per cent) aged four to six have a needle phobia, and this decreases to one in nine (11 per cent) by age 10 to 11. Among adults, about 3.5 to 10 per cent have a needle phobia.

Working as a nurse, I still remember Emma, a five-year old girl, who was petrified of needles. I recall her little face, the anger and fear, the tears and screams just at the sight of a needle.

Her increasing fear was due to previous blood tests, injections, and other medical procedures. And it didn’t get any easier until she got some professional play therapy help.