Whooping cough vaccine. How common is whooping cough anyway ?

[NightSkyWanderer]

I am hesitant about the vaccine.
My midwife is very adamant about pushing the whooping cough vaccine.
What's people's opinion on whopping cough? To be honest I'm rather reluctant to take a vaccine for something I'd never even heard about before. Midwife says it's common but at almost 40 years of age I've never had whooping cough so it begs me to wonder how common is it really? While i want my baby to be safe and I'm not opposed to all vaccines in life, however I am against having vaccines while I'm pregnant. I've already declined the flu vaccines and covid vaccines due to horrible responses from both past injections.
Since becoming pregnant I'm hardly out of the house , I'm fortune enough to be at home during the day and I only go out once in a while to supermarket. Ive stopped socialising and I've become somewhat of a hermit due to exhaustion and fear of exposure to virus's ect while pregnant so really wouldn't my risk be low anyway ?
I'd value some other opinions as to your experiences

Thankyou for all your comments.
I'll ask my midwife to discuss it further in detail at my next appointment. Other than urging me to get the vaccine due to it being so important she didn't really divulge into the topic

Please do not contribute to spreading a disease that kills children. Vaccinations protect your baby and other children

My child was vaccinated and still caught it in primary school. He was coughing for three months, whooping and vomiting at one point. Unless you know they've been in contact with someone with whooping cough then by the time you realise it isn't just a cold then it's too late for the antibiotics to work, though they are also given to household members as a precaution.

I had it last year, my son is coming up for 6 months now and is a healthy ball of energy and very smiley.

I had no side effects whatsoever when I had it (apart from the sore arm of course, but that’s true of every injection).

Do get the vaccine, it’ll protect your baby and othe little babies too.

There was a case at my kid's school this year. As pp have said, it protects the baby from, erm, death. Well worth getting, I've had it in three pregnancies and no side effects.

It protects babies from a potentially fatal disease in infancy. That is all there is to it, really. If you’d like to needlessly increase the risk of your baby dying from a preventable disease then don’t get it. If you don’t want to do that then have the vaccine.
HTH.

OP I’ve worked with neonatal babies with whooping cough and it’s a horrible illness. It’s a vaccine that’s designed to protect baby, not you. Hence the time period it can be given matches with when immunity passes via the placenta. The side effects for mum are often a sore or tender arm for a night. Serious side effects are “extremely rare” (and also don’t forget that the list for side effects of medication in pregnancy os often long/longer than outside of it - as pregnancy looks different for each person, and it can be hard to distinguish what’s “caused” by the vaccine versus “caused by bump” - eg. Stress in pregnancy makes me constipated. Whooping cough vaccine is often given around 20 weeks. This is a period I’ve previously had late losses at so I find it highly stressful. If I was recording a list of corresponding symptoms to the time of vaccination - there’s a chance I’d attribute my tummy to the vaccination, as it’s only with experience I’ve learnt it’s more connected to timelines than one individual experience!). If that makes sense?

Im also aware that you’ve describe how much life has “narrowed” for you since pregnancy. Is your anxiety very high? I wonder if maybe it could be helpful to speak with someone about your worries about keeping baby safe? And the impact it’s having on you? Antenatal anxiety is really common (but can feel horrible to have to live with). Perinatal mental health teams exist to support mums to be and this is often something they can help with. Usually a midwife can signpost you to somewhere local to you.

This was on our local news the other night (south wales). Cases are going up and up of some very sick babies. I got the jab as soon as I was able to. It’s common now because people didn’t take up the jab when offered.

The reason whopping cough is not common is that most of us are vaccinated. It was the same with measles - almost eradicated via vaccination but the drop in rates has now meant that it's back. Measles kills children. If we're not careful, polio will come back too.
You are offered these vaccinations for a reason, and you are incredibly privileged that you are offered them free of charge, no need to queue, no problem. Please just do the right thing.

I know this isn't what you posted about, but this is really concerning:

Ive stopped socialising and I've become somewhat of a hermit due to exhaustion and fear of exposure to virus's ect while pregnan

Exposure to viruses is what develops babies' immune systems - are you going to stay indoors when your baby is born? It would be incredibly harmful to both of you - you for MH reasons and baby for maturing immune system.

I had it. A baby had died of whooping cough in my area shortly before I was offered it in pregnancy, so I had it without hesitation. Surprised you've never heard of it- I know a few people who've had it. I had all offered vaccines in pregnancy including the covid ones. Never had side effects, never heard of anyone in real life who had side effects, healthy babies. Kids all vaccinated, no issues there either. Find all the worry and panic around vaccines really weird tbh - I'm much more concerned about rising rates of measles and whooping cough and god knows what all else because people aren't having them - especially if you have a small baby / child who isn't fully vaccinated yet.

I have had the vaccine in all 3 pregnancies with no side effects. Think about how much you will be going out in the first 3 months of baby’s life. How many people will be holding baby and where else will those people be going around that time.

The vaccine often doesn't last. My child caught it five years after vaccination and at least another child a similar age caught it from him. It's not like the MMR.

The vaccine is to protect your baby. Even a tiny bit of online research will tell you this. Heck even your midwife would have told you as well...

As a pp saliently remarked, whether or not you live cheek by jowl with an "at risk demographic", your newborn will almost certainly spend time in a hospital, and a GPs surgery (having their own vaccinations for one thing).

Whooping cough isn't as contagious as measles (nothing is) but it's a real risk in the current circumstances in England with rapidly rising case numbers - unlike your personal situation.

There's whooping cough around a lot in my area apparently.
I had it as a baby and was very ill so I would definitely have the vaccine.

As everyone else has said, it’s to protect your baby, not you. Is it likely your baby will get it? No. Is it possible? Absolutely, and they’d be very very poorly if they did.

I had no side effects when I got the vaccine whilst pregnant, not even a sore arm.

I was speaking to 3 mums at playgroup last week who haven’t (and won’t) vaccinated their children at all. They are worried about the rise in measles cases at the moment and saying they don’t want their children to die if they catch it. I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t vaccinate your baby who looks to you to protect them. If everyone stops getting vaccines these illnesses will be very common, like they were many years ago before the vaccines were available.

The reason that you don’t hear about it anymore is because of the vaccination.

I was hospitalised with it when I was little.

Same with measles and mumps.

I had the booster during pregnancy, my husband had a booster just after our child was born. Our child had all the vaccines as scheduled. No bad reactions. Just a slightly sore arm/leg at the injection site.
The whooping cough vaccine is also bundled with Tetanus, diphtheria and polio. Getting a booster for Tetanus is a good idea every 20 years or so. Tetanus is a bacteria that produces a toxin so dangerous that an infected area the size of a pinhead can kill an adult. It causes uncontrollable muscle spasms. Tetanus lives in soil. Diphtheria is extremely nasty and luckily the vaccine works very well and so it’s rare now in places with good childhood vaccine programs. Polio still hasn’t quite been eradicated. The incidence has dropped very low because the vaccine is so effective. Polio used to literally cripple children. It causes limbs to become paralyzed. You really really want your child to avoid contracting any of these four diseases.

I felt a bit rough for couple days.(i did have all jabs flu, whooping cough with possible measles and couple others at once though as i hadn't had any for years)

No problem just made me grumpy and needing naps.

We have had whooping cough going around where i am last year.

I had vaccinations for whooping cough, flu and covid while pregnant with no side effects. It's a no brainer.

This was the reason I wasn’t vaccinated either (epilepsy on both sides of the family). I was pretty ill with measles and whooping cough.

It wasn't that common for some time, but in last ten years or so, there were outbreaks in different locations across Europe.
I remember a bigger one in some part of Germany around 2018, which lead to an effective lock down for babies.

The good thing is, that the vaccine is available, tested for all age categories (it is normally administered to 3 months olds) and offered in pregnancy for years in many European countries.

Maybe let your midwife explain how you getting vaccinated now protects the baby when it is born.

I also didn’t have it in the 1980s because of the scare, caught it and was very unwell.

You haven’t heard of it as the vaccinations worked, don’t help undo the good work.

Is not as common anymore because there is a vaccine