Protecting a 3 week old from whooping cough

[stargirl1701]

Baby is 3 weeks old so still 5 weeks till vaccination for WC. How do I protect her? What symptoms should I be looking out for? Panicky first time mum.

I dont know if you can do it in the UK as I'm in the US right now, but here you can walk into a pharmacy and get your pertussis shot privately. It's only about $20. No idea if you've got the same in Boots though (although I remember they offer the flu shot).

I wanted to get a whooping cough booster (am in the UK) as I have a small, premature baby. I was informed that they only give the pertussis vax to children under 5, so I am not permitted to have it. Does anyone know any more about this?

Stargirl I had my vaccine today - I'm 39 weeks pregnant. Part of my thinking was even if I have the baby before the antibodies cross the placenta I'll have some immunity in my breastmilk. Not as effective as the 8 week vaccine - but some protection.

That's good Josie. I gave up Breastfeeding when I was admitted to hospital with infective mastitis, blood sepsis and a bladder infection - a week after the birth! My milk was unfit for consumption according to the lab . Had to use formula.

outch (((Stargirl)))

Oh my goodness poor you! You have been through the mill.

I think then the best advice given up thread is to get yourself and your DH/P vaccinated - and to make it clear to grandparents / cousins etc that anyone who is coughing at all will have to stay clear for the next 5 weeks. If they're a bit so be it...

This is very interesting don't you think? It's clearly not an issue of vaccinate/don't vaccinate.
Report about American outbreak.

I remember a few years back their was a nasty outbreak amongst an almost entirely vaccinated population ( Observant New York Jews I think?) and it turned out that
a) The vaccine waned more quickly than expected.
b) Some of the outbreak was a different strain of the disease that wouldn't have been protected against by the vaccine.
c) The vaccine wasn't as effective as previously thought/HIgh failure rate
d) Immune people were acting as carriers/spreaders of the disease.
e) recently vaccinated children were also spreading the disease.

It's a very knotty problem.

A knotty problem is right. I'm of the view that we may have to accept a certain level of disease in society and it may even be good to keep our numbers down (see this interesting article: www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/28/deadly-viruses-ebola-marburg-sars?INTCMP=SRCH)

However, that doesn't make the issue of looking after our children any less complicated.

The irony is, that were diseases like WC circulating freely in populations, those who are immune who have their immunity boosted (I think that's right?) so eliminating these issues of vaccines wearing off and viruses mutating. It does of course mean that we have to accept the disease...

Rock and a hard place.

Ruby

Like the title of the article you linked to says, it's not JUST the fault of parents who don't vaccinate. But it certainly doesn't help.

Vaccines against whooping cough are very good at protecting the individual from severe whooping cough. And vaccinated people are still less likely to get whooping cough, and if they do they are less contagious.

Downindorset
I'm not sure I buy your Malthusian approach. I think I'd prefer contraception as a means to control population size rather than just accepting disease and not trying to control it.

And there's another whole can of worms.
thinktwice.com/birthcon.htm
Excuse dodgy link, but it seems the basic facts as they stand are chackable.

Oh for gods sake. Nothing like a good conspiracy theory! At least I know now where you get your 'evidence' from, ruby.

As I said. dodgy link. Checkable facts.

Hmm - I'm not sure contraception or something akin to China's one child policy does not come with it's own set of equally if not more difficult moral and ethical issues.

As I said - it's a tricky subject.

I can understand why people might be wary of innoculations if they believe that this is the agenda of those in power. We could leave them to starve, get hideous diseases rely on natural population control, or we could introduce an agent which goes some way to controlling the growth of population.

I was just commenting on the Malthusian versus Conspiracy based version of poulation control.

And of course, many countries populations won't or can't use contraception.

Country's even.
Bugger.

Absoute bollocks. Vaccinations have never been used for population control. That's speculation, conjecture and conspiracy theorising. Total crankosphere.

In fact, vaccinations have the opposite effect. Reducing infant and child mortality has the same effect on population growth as increasing fertility (more girls survive to childbearing age). So vaccination is actually anti-malthusian.

Peopkle should have the right to access modern and effective cotnraception. Coercive family planning programmes are a completely different issue and totally separate from vaccniations.

Thinktwice.com is crankosphere par excellence.

They even have a section devoted to homeopathic alternatives and they think the polio vaccine causes AIDS. Sorry if this is your main 'information' source.

The director of Thinktwice is N Miller who wrote the crap study that was linked to on the other thread where he included babies that didnt even live long enough to be vaccinated in the US to claim that the higher the amount of vaccines the higher the immortality.

seconding the "crank" comment of Elaine (but that fits my agenda). And of course vaccines are a measure of population control. If vaccines prevent children from dying in the developing world, the poor women can concentrate on raising most of their kids and need to have fewer to secure their "old age". Anyone who suggest that Bill Gates and Gavi could have meant anything else is a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy nut.

Update:

GP is offering all women who have recently given birth the whooping cough vaccine. The surgery are awaiting delivery of the vaccinations - they think it'll be next week. I've to phone back next Monday to book a vaccination.