To think friend was irresponsible to spread whooping cough around?

[Monkley]

DS (3) who is asthmatic and have a very low immune system has just be diagnosed with whooping cough, he is so ill I've been in tears (he has been vaccinated)

I have friend who is against vaccinations and therefore didn't vaccinate her three DC's which I have never had a problem with until now. Our children play together and a few weeks ago she mentioned (after a day of DC's playing together) that all hers had terrible coughs like she'd never heard before which had lasted over a month. She had given them homeopathic remedies but not been to the doctor.

I am convinced DS caught whooping cough from them and I do realise how unreasonable that sounds but I just feel she's been really irresponsible.

Saintly did you see Darren has lost his daughter to whooping cough.

sorry no I didn't bronze, the problem of reading on the ipad. Sorry darren my post was insensitively written.

FWIW..................I gave my sister whooping cough in the '70s. I had been vaccinated and she hadn't (due to heart problems).
My mother had no idea that I had it until DSIS started whooping, although I had been coughing

Saintly I read it several times before I took it in. For what its worth I kind of agree with you but can completely understand Darrens point of view.

Oh yes I can understand as well and would have worded my post very differently. Am going to ask MN to delete it.

Monkley, I would question how good a friend your "anti-vac" friend really is.

Her anti-vac views are irrelevant to this situation really - the nub of the matter is that she visited the home of a young asthmatic, taking her three children who, by her own admission, "had terrible coughs like she'd never heard before which had lasted over a month". Even if it was just a cold or a virus, you do not take such things unannounced to the door of people with compromised respiratory/immune systems! A cold to a healthy person is far too likely to become something more serious to them. You just don't do it.

If she had contacted you beforehand, said 'all the kids are coughing', you would have re-arranged the date. But she didn't give you that opportunity. She mentioned it "after a day of DC's playing together".

Regardless of whether they had whooping cough and regardless of where your DS caught it, you are right to feel that she's been really irresponsible. She has, towards your son and her own children.

I agree with you whereyouleftit that it is far better to check with the parent first if you know the child you are visiting is asthmatic, but in this case it doesn't sound as if they were still coughing. The op mentions the mother saying they had had dreadful coughs but not noticing coughing herself.

Although if it was whooping cough and they really had had it for a month them the medical literature suggests it would no longer be infectious anyway.

My little sister almost died of whooping cough as a baby (too young to be vaccinated). She still has weak lungs now as an adult.

Bloody irresponsible.

Question - am interested in views.

If you catch something from someone who has been vaccinated because they didn't realise they could still get the disease despite vaccination have they acted irresponsibly?

No because at least they tried to prevent it

Another question: is a young baby who is breastfed protected against WC if the mother has

a) been vaccinated but never had the disease
b) had the disease naturally

? Surely, if mothers were passing on antibodies, young babies would not be at risk.

girlpancake - It was that reading that site that made me realise I had whooping cough. I usually avoid diagnosis by google, but that clarified it for me. For a lot of adults whooping cough is not something they would imagine getting, I didn't.

No because at least they tried to prevent it

But they didn't educate themselves enough to find out that they could still get it? Isn't that irresponsible?

Playing devil's advocate as I don't blame people actually, but I am horrified that so many people have no idea they can still catch an illness they've been vaccinated for. Why don't people know that? Shouldn't someone be telling them? DS1 caught rubella from a vaccinated child, which was fine, I'd rather he'd had it and by the time he was infectious I knew he had been exposed so we just stayed in and it stopped with him. I think there is more than one way to be responsible.

happiness Surely, if mothers were passing on antibodies, young babies would not be at risk.
My understanding is that passive immunity for whooping cough doesn't pass that well or last very long. When ds1 was exposed at 4 months I was quite worried because the things I was reading said almost no immunity to whooping cough was found in babies, even when the mother has immunity. I knew I was immune as I played with my friend coughing all over me in childhood when I had measles and didn't get it, so I was concerned to realise that ds2 wouldn't benefit even though I was breastfeeding etc as well. Although some articles I read yesterday suggested vaccinating mothers to pass immunity on to their babies so maybe I had that wrong, or maybe some protection is passed, just not as much as, for example, measles.

dd2 almost certainly caught mumps from a vaccinated child.

the incubation period is quite long, and during term time she pretty much goes to school and then straight home. during the half term before she was ill we didn't go anywhere (dd1 not having a good time of it at that point, so we were housebound for the week).

if people are going ot try to prevent catching/spreading illness, then it is their duty to:

1. be fully informed as to realistic immunity rates post vaccination
2. realise how long that protection might last (again, realistically, rather than 'best figure' projections, and organise boosters etc, and
3. be aware of the symptoms of all diseases they have vaccinated against, and rather than think 'it can't be X, as s/he had the vaccine for that' instead think 'oh, that's just like X, I'd better read up about incubation peroiods/exclusion periods'

I caught whooping cough from a friend's child when I was eight months pregnant. They had not had their child immunised, and only found out it was whooping cough the day after I was in contact with them, but still neglected to tell me in case I "started to worry". You bet I would have worried!! I had whooping cough (but had not been diagnosed) when I gave birth at eight and a half months. When the hospital realised that I had it, I was sent home, and my baby taken into Special Care. I did not see her again for two and a half weeks. I had to express milk at home which my exdh used to take up to her twice a day. When I was reunited with her, I didn't recognise her as she had gone from 5 1/2 pounds to eight pounds. It took a long time to get over the separation. To say nothing of whooping cough with stitches - OUCH!!

Even now 34 years later, I well up thinking of this time.

I got whooping cough at 3 over 40 years ago now - I had been vaccinated. It took them ages to diagnose me because apparently if you have been vaccinated you didn't get the whoop, just a terrible cough (and sickness and all the other related symptoms).

I don't know if that applies nowadays.

DS was vaccinated because according to my DM it was that which saved my life.

The more people that are vaccinated the less likely it is to be passed on. If 95% of children were vaccinated measles, mumps and rubella could be eradicated. This is why we don't get smallpox any more.

Immunity passed on by the mother to the baby lasts about a year. The MMR vaccine is 90% effective.

www.nhs.uk/Planners/vaccinations/Pages/sciencevaccinations.aspx

Darrenc - so so sorry for your loss.

Well I doubt you'd eradicate mumps measles and rubella as measles has spread in communities with supposedly full vaccination and mumps is known now to be not as effective as originally assumed (if you look on pub med you should find some references - and mumps after 10 years is nowhere near 90%).

But we're not talking about MMR anyway?

dd2 is 5, btw.

and half her year were off with 'mumps-like virus' last term...

waning mumps immunity:

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/13/1/06-0649_article.htm

And really given that they know this, and given that mumps is nearly always a mild child illness (asymptomatic in a third of cases) but more likely to lead to complications in adults they really should sort this out. If only 66 -86% (depending on one or two doses) of 11-12 year olds still have immunity what must the figures be like for 20 years olds?

And this (from the above paper) is key surely?

"In the presence of natural boosting, neutralizing antibodies have been demonstrated up to 12 years after vaccination (30). However, duration of antibody persistence in a high-coverage setting where mumps circulation has declined is not known. In Finland, a decline in mumps antibody titers was demonstrated in vaccinated children (31), and the proportion of children seropositive for mumps antibodies some years after MMR vaccination was lower than expected in Sweden and the United Kingdom (32,33)."

Well obviously if 10% of those immunised are not immune then some vaccinated people will catch it, but the higher the percentage of the population not being immunised the more likely you are to come into contact with the disease

But it's not ten percent. After ten years it can be as high as nearly 40% not immune. After 20 years presumably higher. That's the problem.

Oh. This has just made me wonder (diagnose us, Mumsnet please)

DH, DDs and I have all been a little bit ill for a few weeks - nothing much, just runny noses and a bad cough. Littlest DD (10 months) has had it worse, and has been treated during that time for tonsilitis, which cleared up quickly with antibiotics, but the cough remains. She has 'whooped' a couple of times, and has been sick after coughing. Older DD (2.10) is OK but still coughing at night after a few weeks. DH and I feel fine of a little sniffly, but still coughing every now and then daily. No sickness or whoops. (Older DD, DH and I have been vaccinated)

Whooping cough hadn't even crossed my mind. DH looks after the children, so I didn't know about DD's 'whoop' or sickness until I mentioned this. Do you think we might have it? If so, are we still likely to be contagious? Fell terrible if this could be the case - am a teacher, older DD goes to re-school etc.