To be stressed about whooping cough vaccine

[Sastra]

As you may have seen in this morning's papers, new advice states that pregnant women should be vaccinated against whooping cough in order to protect very small babies once they're born. Wonderful! However, you can only be vaccinated up to 38 weeks. I'm 36 weeks. Called my GP this morning only to be told that they don't know what I'm on about and they don't even have any of the relevant vaccination.

I know that they'll catch up in due course but its likely to be too late for me. I'm really pissed off that the press have released all this without frontline services being prepared or even made aware. I'm really stressed that I'm not going to be able to have the vaccination in time, meaning my baby is going to be unprotected in the midst of an epidemic (in the middle of a big dirty city like London).

Am I being unreasonable? I'm not sure what to do? Will call her later but I'm sure MW won't be able to do anything - they're not going to be able to find funding for this to start immediately when it's meant to be coming out of the GP budget.

Yep me too. They've known about this for weeks but only just announced it, too, and by the time the programme's rolled out next week I'll be 39 weeks and thus inelligible. DH had WC a few years ago and it was utterly awful.

Sorry, but there will be loads of other women too who are at term who will have missed out too regardless of how quickly they roll it out, so YABU.

They will have the "relevant" vaccine, as it is exactly the same one as they give for the routine infant jabs and there's always a good supply of it.

You need to talk to your MW. NHS is giving the immunisation to provoke an immune response in the mother, so her antibodies can pass to the baby, and thus in turn maximises the transferred immunity in the baby until they can receive the (same) jab themselves. I suspect the timing will be connected to how long it takes for the body to mount an immune response after exposure. After a certain number of weeks, there may not be sufficient time for e biological process to take place.

Unfortunately, whenever the announcement was made, there will be a population of pregnant women (and new-borns under jab age) who miss out.

YANBU that GPs should've been made aware of the media announcement. I expect they'll all be flooded with phone calls this morning!

Im nearly 38 weeks and so I phoned my GP this morning and he hadnt got a clue really - even told me that "sometimes the papers are ahead of us"!! He also tried to treat me as an equal - ie, "its up to you really, what do you think?" - which I HATE. I am not a medical person and I want, you know, medical advice from my GP (not too much to ask surely?)!! When I said this, he 'advised' me to speak to the midwife as she would probably know more. Needless to say I cant get through to the midwife. When pushed however the GP said that the vaccine is safe for me and the baby, but he couldnt say whether it was too late for it to be any use. Sigh.

On the basis of this advice, and given that other countries, inc US, routinely vaccinate pregnant women in this way, I have managed to book an appointment for Monday next week.

same here docs had no idea - also another thread in pregnancy

i jsut find it out that they cant communicate with each other when these announcements are made so surgies arnt prepared, then we the public get caught in the middle terrified not knowing what to do.

by the wya - docs will be paid - 7 pounds per jab to help with extra work load.

why cant they tell surgies first - then make media announcement?

Meditrina it's different to the infant ones, it's the pre-school one, but that still means obviously that there will be lots of stock available.

They did. Doctors were informed by CMO's letter (sent yesterday by email), though admin arrangements were only published today. The information is all on the DoH website too.

None of this is classified information (can you imagine the furore if any part of UK immunisation policy was?) so the press can run with it immediately.