Baby dies of whooping cough. Concerns about vaccine hesitancy.

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Article on the the BBC website today. It’s so sad.
Vaccines are probably the most important public health measure ever introduced. But they’ve been so successful that people forget how awful things were before we had them and how deadly the diseases were.

Baby dies of whooping cough after mother not vaccinated while pregnant https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2xe5l4mn5o

I don’t understand why this isn’t a thing in the UK. Surely that would improve take up?!

Edited it again to provide a proper link! Sorry, it's obviously been moved around a bit but still available online and very much worth a quick read.

https://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html

That would be horrific and not appropriate at all. It would cause huge resentment and possibly make the situation much worse.

Vaccines are the absolute definition of “victims of their own success”.

We don’t fear polio or typhoid or measles any more because many of us do not know someone who has been harmed by them.

But they are bloody terrifying!

I had whooping cough as a little kid as me and my brother weren’t allowed the vaccine due to a medical condition my mum had. It was absolutely horrific. Even though I was only around 5, I remember gasping for air. A friend born in another country had Polio as a child which has impacted a leg. Vaccinations are so important. This is a tragic story.

Not the most effective communication strategy? Oh give over.

vaccinating babies is the PARENTS responsibility. If any mum needed more than a letter to vaccinate a child because of the 'communication' they should be charged with neglect. Anyone who doesn't vax unless for medical reasons should be done for neglect. Your child maybe 3 now but you were irresponsible and careless not to get whooping cough.

my twin sister died of whooping cough. We were both extremely premature so didn't get the chance to be jabbed for it via my mum.

you could have laid privately or gone to a chemist. I can't believe at same mother but just think 'oh well can't find the nurse I'll risk it.'

blows my mind. Be grateful that other parents like us who do vax kids make your child's risk lower due to herd immunity.

did your son have the vitamin K shot?

the Covid pandemic really brought the anti vax nut jobs out of the woodwork. I was surprised how many seemingly intelligent friends of mine posted insane conspiracy bullshit on facebook during the pandemic. It’s caused (along with the Andrew Wakefield scandal) untold harms.

That is meant to be bullying?😳

I think actually vaccine fear after Covid is justified due to what happened to some people who had the AZ jab. It’s natural for people to be scared but it was quickly identified and the public were made aware quickly, to me that shows that if there’s an issue with a particular vaccine the government act on that quickly and withdraw it. For others they may develop a fear of all vaccines . Calling them nut jobs won’t help or reassure. Educating is key. Getting vaccines out into the community would help too similar to the flu vaccine programme at schools. Take the vaccines where they are needed.

no, I agree. And I can only talk about my friends, but some of them were acting in a nut job way. Posting videos of supposedly empty hospitals at the height of the pandemic and saying no one was dying and believing it. That’s insane. I agree that education is key.

No. I’m all for vaccination, and my DC have had everything available, and I was vaccinated in pregnancy. But you cannot prosecute a woman for not accepting medication herself, where later on that decision has caused harm to her child. This is different to people not vaccinating their child, which I do think should be more strongly enforced.

One thing I think is missing so far from this thread is that different ethnic backgrounds and cultures have different vaccine take ups for a start.

And these aren't always ill-founded or ignorant - they're based on systematic failures of differentiating clinically for different races - much in the same way women's medicine isn't as well studied, and women's pain isn't as believed.

The successful approaches our charity has undertaken for health inequalities is to take the information into the right places - within the community centres, religious venues and neighbourhoods. Information given in the right language (not just the country language but suitably non-medicalised too).

I often get asked if I have a medical background by health professionals. I don't, but I could easily find and access info about the stages of lochia and say I was at the "lochia alba" stage for example - but it's just not realistic to expect women from poorer backgrounds or those operating in their second language to do so.

It is quite terrifying how some peoples minds react and it’s actually really sad as they are risking themselves and their dc not to mention others. I take a lot of comfort from the fact the government were very transparent about the clot issues and deaths after AZ vaccines in rare cases it really proved I think that they can act swiftly in response to this kind of thing.

I really feel as well there’s an element of parents being so busy and struggling to access appts too so having community schemes for catch up doses in schools could really help . Often people are much more willing when they don’t have to take time off/ travel etc for something.

Heart breakingly preventable.

My midwife did my vaccine on the 3rd appointment. No hassle.

How awful.

I was once in an A&E waiting room, and a couple brought in a very small baby in a car seat. I’d never heard the “whoop” cough before but as soon as I heard it I thought “oh that’s why it’s called that, that must be whooping cough!”.
They went to the desk where there happened to be a nurse talking to the receptionist. They both peered over the desk, I guess the baby must have looked quite bad (maybe like it wasn’t getting enough air or something) because the nurse immediately said something to the receptionist and took off very very quickly through a door down a corridor, I assume to alert other staff they were coming. The receptionist said to the couple “follow her down there. Run.”

What would you call it? (Obviously you didn't witness the patronising tone or the distress of the women who were already there due to concerns about their babies, but I'm sure you can imagine how they felt - though possibly not.)

Have you ever worked with communities who are disadvantaged/disenfranchised? You don't seem to have much of an idea about how very vulnerable some people can be to bullying in an institutional environment.

Perhaps you ought to reflect on the massive imbalance of power some women will feel in these situations if it wouldn't occur to you to feel bullied by such actions? After all, I didn't feel bullied.

Having worked extensively against such barriers myself, yeah, I call it as I see it.

Oh, and you've missed the point (perhaps on purpose), that the data sharing in a public space was illegal.

Oh, and just to add, after all that palaver getting my vaccine, my son still got whooping cough age 1, so did I and my severely asthmatic husband. It was bloody awful.

Which is the nail in the coffin of my distaste for shambolic and bullying delivery of vaccine programmes in my Trust.

My whooping cough vaccination was a drop in too, but the clinic times were clearly displayed on the website. I had the Whooping Cough & COVID vaccines at the same time. DH came with me and the midwife offered him the COVID jab too - she was lovely. We were in and out in 10 minutes.

I've looked at a few articles. It doesn't say whether the baby who died had their 3 whooping cough jabs at 8, 12, and 16 weeks, so I'm assuming they were vaccinated against whooping cough via the 6in1 jab?

You should have been told practice nurses can give it (if you can get an appt!). I’ve given hundreds.

Completely agree.

The baby was too young to have the vaccine which is why maternal pertussis vaccination is important as it gives newborn protection until they are eligible

Where did you see the age of the baby? Do they know this? They say 'under 1' but why not say the actual age? Just wondering about that. I know newborns are most at risk, so baby was likely under 4 months when they would have had all three jabs?

Of course you can. Her body, her choice, has to come along with her decision, her consequences.

If the issue was that baby hadn’t had the jab they would not have mentioned the mother being unvaccinated - it was lack of prenatal vaccination that was contributing factor