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

It's common enough. You would have been vaccinated as a baby most likely, I was and I'm older than you. Current advice is to re vaccinate pregnant women, not sure why this is, I wasn't - but it seems the childhood vaccine isn't lifelong and so they don't want to take the risk

It’s common enough and nasty

The vaccine while pregnant isn't to protect mum, it's to protect the baby.
Get the vaccine.

I’m 42 and remember having whooping cough as a child, it was awful, similar to croup it worse 😬. The reason it’s not as common now is because of vaccines so if people stop vaccinating it will become more common. I wasn’t vaccinated as a child and remember having all the illnesses including measles, mumps and whooping cough, whooping cough is the one I remember the most because I was coughing so much I was puking.

It's more common when people don't get vaccinated.

Pregnant women get vaccinated to provide protection to baby in the first weeks of life before baby can be vaccinated.

The vaccine is for your baby. Not you.

Whooping cough in a newborn can be fatal.

Yes, it's for the baby, not you.

It’s pretty common. It’s really awful and drags on forever (and the cough really takes it out of you pretty quickly). It’s also on the significant increase at the minute. A quick Google of it brings up plenty of news articles.

Exactly, nobody cares about an adult getting whooping cough, it’s for the baby. Have you ever heard a baby or child with that cough? It’s heartbreaking to even hear let alone the fact it can make babies seriously ill.

It's not as common now as people are vaccinated! If you had your childhood vaccinations you would have been vaccinated against it. The vaccine given in pregnancy is not for your protection, it is to give baby some protection before they are old enough to get their jabs at 8 weeks old. It can be fatal to newborns. That alone would be enough to have the vaccine.

I got told they vaccinate pregnant woman as until baby is 3 months they cant have a jab..therefore for 3 months unprotected and if a newborn baby gets it, its extremely serious..but for the first 3 months if you got vaccinated the baby will be born with some immunity until they can be vaccinated..

whooping cough kills. The vaccine has shown to reduce babies contracting and dying from it.

There was a scare in the 80s that the vaccination "caused" epilepsy so my mum didn't have me vaccinated. I was hospitalised with it, on a ventilator for weeks. The scare was of course nonsense like the MMR thing.

I didn't risk it with my LO. Got all the jabs. Didn't affect me at at all and she is not in hospital.

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/09/what-is-whooping-cough-and-why-are-cases-rising-in-england-and-wales
You hadn't heard of it because numbers had been very low until recently - the childhood vaccines have started to wear off. Whooping cough is immensely tedious but not dangerous in healthy adults but can be lethal in young babies. You're not being offered a vaccine to protect yourself, it's to protect your newborn.

Oh really, that's interesting. I didn't realise it was indeed so common as nobody I know seems to have contracted it, that they are aware of.
May I ask did anyone experience any side effects from the vaccine?

Had the vaccine as a child and then got it as an adult (along with another colleague who has lost 30% of his lung volume as a result). It was utterly hideous and really thought I was never ging to be able to breathe again through some of the coughing fits. The thought of purposely not vaccinating a child against that is frankly mindboggling. It's a truly horrible disease and you need to vaccinate.

It’s really for the baby not you. And the great irony of trying to keep a newborn safe is that you’ll almost certainly be taking them in and out of hospital and doctors surgeries when tiny - exactly the places where sick people go.

Also, whooping cough went round our local schools last Christmas. So it’s definitely around.

I had zero side effects from the vaccine.

There was a bout of it going round where I lived in 2010ish. Several colleagues got it and so another 1 refused to come into the office because his 2 month old baby was (obviously) unvaccinated. It is horrendous especially in babies and children.

Get the vaccine and protect your child. If you rely on other idiots to get it and they don't there is zero herd immunity and all your kids will get it; see the recent measles outbreak.

There are soaring cases at the moment- numbers up 250% on the previous year. Look up "100 day cough" which has been in the media - it's whooping cough.

No side effects what so ever.

1,400 cases in a population of 70 million is a very small percentage, so it's not surprising you haven't heard of anyone having it. But numbers are growing, and the risk of harm to your newborn in the unlikely event that they did contract it could be disastrous, which is why NICE thinks that it's worth the cost and effort of a widespread campaign to vaccinate pregnant women.

And they made that decision before numbers started growing.

@NightSkyWanderer I wouldn’t have even known I had it. Not so much as a stiff arm! Was one of the easiest vaccines I’ve ever had!

Words fail me.

It's not common because of the vaccine. If people stop getting the vaccine it will be common again and people will die horrible, pointless deaths, including many babies and children.

Where do you live OP? It's a lot more common in England than the other UK nations and more prevalent in specific demographics but they can't say that so they push it on everyone. I didn't have the vaccine with either of my kids and they were fine but we were in Ireland where it's not pushed on you and there are very few cases. If you don't live in an at-risk area don't feel like you have to have it just because some people hear the word "vaccine" and will push anyone into taking anything because "it's a vaccine" so of course you need it. 🙄
I'm not anti vax btw I am just anti manipulation of people to get them to take a medical intervention they might not even need.

A friend of a friend, in Italy, had her baby die of whooping cough just a few years ago. Friend now rather militant on antivaxxers.