Whooping cough jab - any thoughts?

[alliemarg]

I've got my whopping cough jab booked for Friday (31 weeks). My mother-in-law was a midwife for years and is dead against pregnant women being injected with anything during pregnancy. Another friend from Bulgaria also turned it down as she said injections are never given to pregnant women in her home country. I'm all for it as I won't take any risks with this baby but interested in any thoughts on the matter appreciated

I didn't have it, but that was because I had a terrible reaction to it as a baby and didn't want to risk it when pregnant.

There probably wasn't an outbreak of whooping cough when your mum was a midwife. Discuss it with the nurse if you have any concerns.

I had it with this pg. There are no reported adverse vaccine reactions that I am aware of. 13 babies under 8 weeks died the year DD was born.

It is not the same vaccine that was given to babies in the 70s - the vaccine I had as a baby. It was replaced as there were concerns.

My husband had whooping cough as a baby and it affects him even now as an adult. I am having my jab on Tuesday.

I just had it, I want to protect my baby & the health professionals I'm in contact with told me it was best for baby...

I read a lot about it, and decided that having a baby born the late autumn in a city, I'd be worried about an outbreak.

The vaccine didn't hurt, it had no discernible effect on me or the baby. I'm happy that I made a good choice.

As a teacher I can tell you that whooping cough is around! We've had quite a few students and staff off with it in the last two years or so. I'd get that jab, it will not harm your baby.

My mother-in-law was a midwife for years and is dead against pregnant women being injected with anything during pregnancy.

Is it injected drugs themselves? Because many of us do have injections (diabetics, women with sticky blood...) daily with no ill effects.
I would certainly be more worried about the effect of whooping cough on a baby than having an injection/the history of everything.
What they may or may not have done in the past/in another country should be neither here nor there laying babies on their front, wrapping them up super warm, having women lie down a lot in pregnancy leading to more back to backs... all done abroad and in the past ...ask a modern trained midwife, nurse of Dr for their pros and cons and base your ideas on that.

I had whooping cough as a baby. I wasn't allowed the vaccination by doctors (wrongly as it turned out) and almost died. It affected me for months and really scarred my poor mum who was terrified.

I had the jab in my pregnancy with DS2 as I wasn't prepared to risk that.

Hello, here is a patient information leaflet about the whooping cought jab for pregnant women.

www.medicinesinpregnancy.org/Medicine--pregnancy/whooping-cough-vaccine/

As well as the information contained in the leaflet, there is another study that has not been included because it is not yet published. It is of around 20,000 UK pregnant women who have been vaccinated against whooping cough since the vaccination campaign started in 2012. Apparently, there is no evidence of a link with adverse pregnancy outcomes (although I have not yet seen the paper).

Hope this helps :)

PS there is also a very large amount of data on pregnant women receving flu vaccinations with no evidence of any harm (see leaflet below)...just to put your mind at rest re. the idea that vaccination in pregnancy is generally harmful. When I was preggers, the midwife was desperate to give me a flu jab and the whooping cough vacc!

www.medicinesinpregnancy.org/Medicine--pregnancy/Seasonal-influenza-vaccine/

I chose not to have it. There's no evidence as yet that it does provide any protection to baby. Even if you and baby are vaccinated, you can still get whooping cough. For those two reasons alone, I didn't feel any potential benefits outweighed the risks on this occasion. I didn't have the flu jab either - it's a different jab every year which concerned me. I'm pro vax normally, I just wasn't happy to be vaccinated in pregnancy

I think it's very much a personal choice. You can weigh up the likely risks of your baby catching whooping cough in your situation (will you take public transport, have frequent contact with people who probably aren't vaccinated themselves, go to busy public places) against your personal opinions on vaccination in pregnancy.

The leaflet they give you isn't very reassuring, and no one knows if there will be any problems long-term. They know there are none in the short term, and that whooping cough can kill. It's also not a live vaccine (you get the whole whooping cough/diptheria/tetanus etc multivacc that your baby will get at 8 weeks old) so in theory there's no way it could cause problems. You can choose to have it at 28 weeks, or at any time up to 38 weeks, so could wait until the baby has finished developing at 37 weeks to minimize any risks. You have to hope you don't deliver early though in that situation! Your immunity may have waned as an adult so you won't pass any on through the placenta or through bf without the vaccination - or you might have had a recent tetanus booster, and thus have that the whole lot recently enough that you're still immune yourself.

It's a personal choice.

I had friends at home in Australia that would not let me see their newborns until I had the whooping cough injection. I thought this was a little over the top, but everyone got them & seemed like a common request. So it must be very much the norm to have it there.

I had mine today. Felt a little light headed, but that could just be the heat & injection combined. The doctor said there are no major side effects for the bub or myself.

I had it and just regretted having it on the side I sleep on as had bruise for a week and had to try to change sides!!

I'm on the fence. I'm generally pro vax, but pregnancy makes me a bit twitchy about it, and like not I haven't seen enough evidence that it actually helps to protect the baby, plus the window of protection is so limited (just until the baby can have its own eight week jabs).

Hello again, the paper I talked about above was actually published today. I've just read it and the data are very reassuring. 20,000 women were studied in the first six months of the vaccination campaign in the UK. There is no evidence of increased risk of stillbirth, maternal or neonatal death, pre-eclampsia or eclampsia,haemorrhage, fetal distress, uterine rupture, placenta or vasa praevia,caesarean delivery, low birth weight, or neonatal renal failure in pregnant women receving the vaccine. It seems to have been a well thought out and executed study with appropriate stats. I think it provides good preliminary evidence that the vaccine is safe, although in an ideal world of course, other studies would be available to back this up. I think there is also data about to be published that discusses the efficacy of the vaccine with respect to preventing pertussis in babies. I have seen some preliminary figures, and rates do seem to have gone down since the vaccination campaign started. I don't know the ins and outs of this though as haven't seen the paper

I had friends at home in Australia that would not let me see their newborns until I had the whooping cough injection.

I think there might have been outbreaks out there - my DSis had it - as an adult it took her months to recover, sounded v nasty!

Just wanted to say re. the flu vaccine - I am in Australia, and the one that was stockpiled against the swine flu was withdrawn for use in under 5s in 2010 because of the rate of adverse reactions; as I remember it it was also withdrawn for use on pg women.
www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/deaths-linked-to-anti-flu-vaccines/story-e6frg8y6-1226441791947?nk=d33794397a52c7f19bad29c575411719

I know this isn't relevant to the pertussis vaccine the OP is discussing but I saw LittlePeasmummy saying that the flu vaccine was considered generally ok too and wanted to add in extra info about that.

Oh and yes, we did have outbreaks of whooping cough here in the last couple of years.

Hello, I can't access the full text of the vaccine article above. I don't know anything about that specific vaccine as it wasn't used here. But adverse event reports, especially when small numbers are involved, cannot generally be used to assess whether a drug/vaccine is doing something out of the ordinary. You usually have to look at rates of outcomes across large groups, ideally a whole population for that. Stillbirth (which the article mentions) is sadly a not uncommon pregnancy outcome (rates in the UK are about 1/200) so by chance, some people who have been vaccinated will have a stillbirth. Whether the rates are higher in vaccinated than unvaccinated women is the key. I don't think there have been any studies of flu vaccines that have shown an overall increased rate of stillbirth and I'm sure one has shown a protective effect.
The swine flu vaccine used most commonly in the uk (Pandemrix) was linked to an increased rate of narcolepsy when used in children and teens, but the overall risk was still low. It's not being used anymore now anyway as it was specifically for the pandemic, as was the vaccine mentioned in the article by the look of it's name.

I had every jab going and no side effects. Baby is now 3 months old and doing great. You really don't want to get whooping cough. Have the job and try not to get scared by people telling horror stories. Sometimes the reactions people have aren't really reactions to the jabs- people can get sick at the same time as getting injections just be coincidence.

It's a personal decision, don't be swayed if its something you want. I would have it for a couple of reasons,
-Baby due in Jan
-I'm a CM and baby will be around children
-I had to call an ambulance for one of my charges before because of whooping cough, it was a horrific experience!

I think it's very worth doing, but you have to decide what's best for you and baby. Speak to midwife to get up to date information!

I think it's one of those things where the benefits outweigh the risks. I'm very pro-vaccine so didn't hesitate to get it. Arm was a bit sore for about 3 days but no adverse side affects.

Thanks everybody, those are some really helpful well-reasoned arguments. Going to press on and have it - my gut feeling was to trust the NHS and to be safe, not sorry, but others had been putting doubts in my mind...