Whooping cough vaccine during pregnancy - opinions?

[LemonPeculiarJones]

I'm probably going to have the vaccination because essentially I'm pro-vaccination, and would hate to omit anything that could help protect my baby, but the fact that its only been done in the UK for four months or so, with no clinical trials, worries me.

I'm 32 weeks pregnant now.

Discussed it with the nurse and she said that the vaccine has always been administered to pregnant women if they needed it for overseas travel, anyway.

But I feel unnerved.

Does anyone have any more information about this to help sway me?

And those of you who have had it, I'd be interested to know how you came to the decision.

Thanks

It's been around for longer than 4 months. My babies 15 weeks old and I had the vaccine at around 30ish weeks (baby brain so can't quite remember!)

In my opinion, I wanted to give my baby the best chance when she was born and the rise in whooping cough deaths swayed that decision for me.

I'm pretty sure the vaccine has been used in places like France and USA for a lot longer than we've had it here as we'll but I'm not 100% sure on that.

I can see no adverse affects from the whooping cough vaccine or the flu jab that I had in my dd, and to me it's no different to the vaccines my baby had/will have at 8, 12 and 16 weeks. apart from I had to have the horrible injection

I would rather vaccinate then not and my baby then catch the horrible disease that is whooping cough.

Oh and I had no adverse affects from it either apart from my arm swelling at the injection site for a week, but this happens with every jab I have.

It's the same vaccine that is given to babies at their first imms and is used around the world on pg women. I had it because I've seen first-hand what whooping cough looks like on an adult, and that was bad enough - absolutely no way I was risking it for my baby, and there is a lot of it about at the mo. I had it at 29 weeks, dd is 12 weeks old now and completely fine.

I had it because I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I'd decided not to & then my baby caught it later when I could potentially have prevented it.

I weighed that against potential risks of a vaccination - I personally felt these were lower than the risk of whooping cough later. I asked myself which would be worse - a low risk of an adverse reaction due to me trying to protect my baby, or a risk of serious illness I would have felt I could have prevented. Am aware others will believe the exact opposite!

At the end of the day you can only inform yourself as best you can & then go with your gut about what is right for you & your baby. PS - DD now a happy, healthy & hungry 6 months!

Thanks to both of you, that's really helpful.

I'm not concerned about any ill effects on me, btw, just on the still-downloading baby boy I'm carrying!

But yes, the fact that its exactly the same vaccine that he'll have when he's 8 weeks is really pertinent isn't it.

Thanks hedgehog. I'm going to book in with the nurse today.