My baby's nose bled after a night of a hacking cough - could it be whooping cough?

[beatie]

I just looked up my baby's symptoms on NHS Direct and am now alarmed to have read the symptoms of Whooping Cough.

She's had this cough for 2 or 3 nights. It's worst after she's been lying down so she starts coughing around 3am. It's like a hacking cough....like when a smoker stops for awhile and they get a mucussy cough. She's not yet coughed up muccus. During the day she's not coughing that much - 3-4 episodes today.

This morning when she woke for the day she had a nose bleed.

Now I'm alarmed.

Call NHS Direct. Keep her cot propped up at night so that she's not lying flat as this will exaggerate it.

If it is whooping cough, you can tell straight away as the noise they make is very distinctive, it is a 'whoop' rather than a cough.

She's not quite 4 months. I read that the whoop isn't heard in young babies.

is she otherwise a well baby, putting on weight, well developed, any temp lack of appetite, other symptoms. don't mean to sound like the spanish inqusition but how bad a nose bleed was it?

take her to the GP/drop in centre. mieow almost died from whopping cough, which the docs said was just a cold, and told my mum she over anxious.

You'll probably hear the whoop even in a young baby; it's caused by the drawing in of breath after they've coughed until their lungs are empty. My little sister had it when she was a few months old and the noise is unmistakeable.

If you are concerned enough to be thinking that it's whooping cough, get to the doctors as soon as you can - it's a nasty illness and the sooner it's caught the better.

if you are worried about the cough, I would take her in - it could be a sort of post-nasal drip or it could be something else but if you're worried, always better to get her checked out (as she's still only little).

She could just be the sort of baby/child who is going to get nose bleeds - also babies tend to stick their fingers up their nose quite forcibly without meaning to and the air is quite dry at night at the moment.

She is otherwise as well as she has always been - which is very perky, feeding well, smiling and contented ~ that's why I've tended not to worry about coughs and sneezes.

I had W cough as a child and I've also heard what the cough usually sounds like. But, it's the nose bleed which had me concerned so I went looking up symptoms and now I'm a bit more concerned. DD1 gets a slight bleed from the nose when she cries a lot... but dd2 hadn't been crying.

Tonight I'll make sure her head is inclined in her cot and I'll consider taking her to the doctor/nurse tomorrow.

What happened Beatie?