RSV Prevention

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 21:50:27 GMT

Protect your baby against RSV

Protect Your Baby Against RSV!

If your baby was born on March 1, 2026 or later and did not receive an RSV shot in March 2026 they should receive additional protection against RSV. If your child does not have a well check scheduled before turning 8 months old OR does not have a well check scheduled before December 1 we encourage you to call for an appointment to provide this protection after reading the information below.

What is RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus)?

RSV is a common respiratory virus that can infect people of any age. RSV can be seen at any time of the year but it is most common between November - March. It typically causes cold symptoms in children and adults but in young infants it can cause a much more severe infection called "bronchiolitis". Infants with bronchiolitis develop inflammation in their lungs that can be severe. Babies with severe infection can require hospitalization to receive extra oxygen. Some babies become sick enough to require being placed on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. Babies who were born prematurely are at highest risk of severe infection. For more information about RSV go to https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/about/index.html

How Can I Protect My Baby Against RSV?

Currently there are two ways of giving your baby extra protection against RSV:

If you are pregnant during the RSV season your obstetrician may offer to give you a vaccine for RSV when you are between 32-36 weeks pregnant. This vaccine will cause you to produce antibodies that will be passed on to your baby before birth and will continue to be passed on after birth if you breast feed.

We can provide temporary protection against RSV by giving your baby an injection of purified antibodies to RSV called clesrovimab (brand name is Enflonsia). Ideally this one-time injection should be given to infants born during the RSV season as soon after birth as possible. It is recommended that any baby born on March 1, 2026 or later be immunized with this vaccine on October 1 or later. Once babies reach 8 months of age they will no longer be eligible for the injection.

For more information about both the maternal vaccine and the antibody injection for babies, go to https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/vaccines/protect-infants.html

How Can Valley Pediatric Group Help Protect My Baby From RSV?

Valley Pediatric Group will begin giving the Enflonsia immunization on or after October 1, 2026. Though we will start scheduling these appointments immediately, they are tentative and dependent on receiving shipment of Enflonsia prior to those dates. If we have not received adequate shipments of Enflonsia prior to that date we will contact you to reschedule.

The following are important considerations:

Enflonsia is expensive . Our 2026-27 charge for Enflonsia will be $640 plus an additional $30-$48 administration fee. This is an immunization that is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC. As such, most insurance plans are required to cover it. If you are uninsured or are participating in a cost sharing plan we will require you to pay the full price of the immunization and administration fee before the immunization is given.
Because of the expense, we encourage you to call your insurance company ahead of time to verify that this will be covered . If your insurance plan requests a billing code (called a CPT code) the code for the immunization itself will be 90382. The administration fee code will be 96380 or 96381 (depending on whether or not the doctor talks with you directly about the immunization before it is given by a member of our clinical staff). We will charge one charge for the immunization and one charge for the administration fee.
Enflonsia can only be given to infants under 8 months old who have never received a previous RSV injection . Once your baby turns 8 months old, we will be unable to give them the immunization. Unless your baby has medical conditions that cause a higher chance of severe infection, they are only eligible to receive Enflonsia if they did not receive an injection of RSV antibodies during the 2025-2026 RSV season.
If mom received the RSV vaccine between 32-36 weeks of pregnancy your baby does not need Enflonsia . However, if your baby was born less than two weeks after receiving the RSV vaccine, they will not be adequately covered by the vaccine mom received. In that case Enflonsia is recommended.
Enflonsia can be given with other routine childhood vaccines. If your child is eligible for Enflonsia at the time of their well check appointment your child's doctor will discuss giving a dose of Enflonsia at that visit.

Enflonsia has become an important tool for protecting babies against RSV. Although it is expensive, it decreases the rates of hospitalization for RSV significantly, protecting thousands of babies from severe illness and ultimately causing a decreased total health care cost. This is an immunization that the doctors of Valley Pediatric Group are strongly encouraging.

For even more information about Enflonsia, go to Enflonsia.com

Is your child up to date on vaccines for Measles and Pertussis?

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 21:58:39 GMT

With the recent outbreaks, we’re getting a lot of calls from families wanting to be certain that their children are up to date on their measles and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccines.

We have lots of information about vaccines and the recommended schedule of vaccinations on our website at https://valleypedgroup.com/resources/immunizations.

To see your child’s vaccine record log into our new patient portal at https://valleypedgroup.portal.officepracticum.com. After logging into your account, switch to your child’s account then click on “Medical Records”. It may take a few seconds for his/her vaccines to populate so don’t just click away if you don’t see them right away.

Here is what is consider “up to date”:

Measles: 2 doses of MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine, the first at 12-18 months old and the second at 4-6 years old.

Pertussis (whooping cough): 3 doses in the first 6 months, a fourth dose between 12-18 months, a fifth dose between 4-6 years old and a booster dose via the “TdaP” vaccine at 11 years old.
If you haven’t had a chance to activate your patient portal account yet now is a good time to do it. Look for an email from us sent around Feb 26.

If you can’t find the email to activate your account send us an email with your child(ren)’s name and DOB to
vpg-patientportal@valleypedgroup.com.

We will resend the letter to activate the portal account to the email address we have on record for adults with joint or exclusive access to the child’s records. For security, we can only send this email to the email account we have on record. Any changes to the email accounts of record can only be done in person at one of our offices.

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RSV Prevention

Protect your baby against RSV

Is your child up to date on vaccines for Measles and Pertussis?