How to prevent seizures around the time of vaccinations

children's Tylenol... or Motrin.  It's the fever that usually accompanies a vaccination that causes the seizures.

I don't think there is any way to prevent it, but it is good to be aware of potential problems.  The MMR vaccine causes febrile seizures in 1 in 3,000 children.  The pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine causes seizures (not febrile ones) that are what the CDC considers a "moderate" problem in 1 in 14,000 children (they divide problems into "mild", "moderate" and "severe").  It's good to be aware, however.  My son is one of those children who began having seizures within 24 hours of receiving the DTaP vaccine.  It started with absence seizures.  He was diagnosed with epilepsy.  If a child has ongoing seizures after a vaccine, it should be reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a government database.  In many cases, ongoing seizures, with onset in proximity to a vaccine, it is actually federal law for the doctors to report it (but most don't know that).