Whooping cough is a very contagious disease that can be deadly for babies. It spreads from person to person, usually by coughing or sneezing while in close contact with others.

Your baby could be at risk for getting whooping cough

People used to think of whooping cough as a disease of the past, but it’s still common in the U.S. Learn why reported cases of whooping cough are increasing.

Since 2010, CDC sees between 10,000 and 50,000 cases of whooping cough each year in the United States. In fact, there are cases reported in every state. 2012 was a record year with more than 48,000 cases, the most cases that CDC has seen in the past 60 years. Most of the deaths each year are in babies younger than 3 months of age. Since 2010, up to 20 babies die from it each year in the United States.

Even though it seems like these are a lot of cases, the United States no longer has the 200,000 cases per year like it did before whooping cough vaccines were available.

Even healthy babies get whooping cough

In the first 6 months of life, babies are at high risk for complications from whooping cough, even if they are healthy. This is because their immune systems are still developing. In fact, babies younger than 2 months of age only have the antibodies they get from their mother to help protect them. It is important for you to get the whooping cough vaccine during each pregnancy. This allows you to transfer the greatest number of protective antibodies to each of your babies.

Whooping cough can be serious for you, your baby, and your family

Whooping cough can cause serious and sometimes life-threatening complications in babies. This is especially true within the first 6 months of life. It is important to know that many babies with whooping cough don’t cough at all. Instead it causes them to stop breathing and turn blue. About half of babies who get whooping cough end up in the hospital. The younger the baby is when she gets whooping cough, the more likely it is that doctors will need to treat her in the hospital. Of those babies who get treatment for whooping cough in a hospital, about 1 out of 4 will get pneumonia and 1 or 2 out of 100 will die. Other complications include violent, uncontrolled shaking, life-threatening pauses in breathing, and brain disease.

Adolescents and adults can also have complications from whooping cough. They are usually less serious in this age group, especially in those who got vaccines against whooping cough. The cough itself often causes common complications in adolescents and adults, including loss of bladder control, fainting, and rib fractures.

Antibiotics are used to treat whooping cough

Doctors generally treat whooping cough with antibiotics (medications that help treat diseases caused by bacteria). Learn why early treatment is so important and get tips for caring for your baby.

Your doctor or local health department may recommend preventive antibiotics to close contacts of a whooping cough patient, including all household members. This might prevent or reduce the chance of getting whooping cough.

Only you can give your baby protection against whooping cough (pertussis) before your little one is even born. Talk to your doctor or midwife about getting the whooping cough vaccine (called Tdap) during your third trimester.

Whooping cough is a serious disease that can be deadly for babies. Unfortunately, babies do not start building their own protection against whooping cough until they get vaccinated at two months old. This leaves babies unprotected in the first months of life when they are at highest risk of getting very sick if they get whooping cough.

Protect your baby before she is able to get vaccinated by getting a Tdap vaccine during the third trimester of your pregnancy. By doing so, you pass high levels of antibodies to your baby before birth. These antibodies help protect your baby against whooping cough in those first months of life.

CDC recommends all women receive a Tdap vaccine during the 27th through 36th week of each pregnancy, preferably during the earlier part of this time period.

Getting a Tdap vaccine during pregnancy passes protection to your baby

After receiving a Tdap vaccine, your body creates protective antibodies and passes some of them to your baby before birth. These antibodies provide your baby some short-term protection against whooping cough in early life. These antibodies can also protect your baby from some of the more serious complications, including hospitalization, that come along with getting whooping cough.

Protective antibodies are at their highest about 2 weeks after getting the vaccine, but it takes time to pass them to your baby. So the preferred time to get a Tdap vaccine is early in your third trimester.

The amount of whooping cough antibodies in your body decreases over time. That is why CDC recommends you get a Tdap vaccine during each pregnancy, even if your pregnancies are only a year or two apart. Doing so allows each of your babies to get the greatest number of protective antibodies and best protection possible.

The recommended time to get the shot is during your 27^ththrough 36^th week of pregnancy, preferably during the earlier part of this time period.

Vaccination during pregnancy offers the best protection

When women get a Tdap vaccine while pregnant, their babies have better protection against whooping cough than babies whose mothers did not get vaccinated during pregnancy. Getting a Tdap vaccine between 27 through 36 weeks of pregnancy lowers the risk of whooping cough in babies younger than 2 months old by 78%.

If you did not get a Tdap vaccine during pregnancy and have never received it before, you can get it after your baby is born. It will take about 2 weeks before your body develops protection (antibodies) in response to the vaccine. Once you have protection from the vaccine, you are less likely to give whooping cough to your newborn while caring for him. But remember, your baby will still be at risk for catching whooping cough from others.

Safe for you, your baby

A Tdap vaccine is very safe for pregnant women and their babies. You cannot get whooping cough from a Tdap vaccine. Getting the vaccine during pregnancy will not increase your risk for pregnancy complications.

Blood tests cannot tell if you need a Tdap vaccine

Experts do not know what level of whooping cough antibodies is needed to protect anyone, including babies, from getting sick. That is why CDC recommends all women get a Tdap vaccine during each pregnancy — even women with some antibodies due to a previous infection or vaccine. The goal is to give each baby the greatest number of protective antibodies possible.

Breastfeeding may pass some protective antibodies onto your baby

You can pass some whooping cough antibodies to your baby by breastfeeding. By getting a Tdap vaccine during your pregnancy, you will have these antibodies in your breast milk as soon as your milk comes in. However, your baby will not get protective antibodies immediately if you wait until your baby is born to get the vaccine. This is because it takes about 2 weeks for your body to create antibodies.

Once your baby is old enough (2 months), he needs to get his whooping cough vaccines. That will be the best way to protect him from whooping cough as he gets older. DTaP is the name of the whooping cough vaccine for children (2 months through 6 years). DTaP vaccine combines protection against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough).

Vaccinate your baby on time to continue protecting against whooping cough

It is very important for your baby to get the DTaP vaccine on time so he can start building his own protection against the disease. Your baby needs to get DTaP vaccines even if you received the whooping cough vaccine for adults (called Tdap) while pregnant. The antibodies you shared with your baby before birth provide short-term protection, but his DTaP shots provide protection during childhood.

Your baby will need several doses of DTaP vaccine to best protect him. CDC recommends the first dose when he is 2 months old. One recent study showed that parents and doctors can prevent many whooping cough deaths among babies. They can do this by making sure all babies receive the first DTaP dose on time. Your baby will need 2 more doses after that, given at 4 months and 6 months, to build up high levels of protection. He will then need booster shots at 15 through 18 months and at 4 through 6 years to maintain that protection.

Most whooping cough deaths are among babies younger than 3 months old.

Newborns cannot get the whooping cough vaccine

In the United States, there are currently no whooping cough vaccines licensed or recommended for newborns. Therefore, babies do not get the whooping cough vaccine at birth. This leaves babies unprotected in the first few months of life. This is when they are at greatest risk for catching whooping cough and having severe, potentially life-threating complications from the infection.

The best way you can protect your baby is to:

• Get the whooping cough vaccine while you are pregnant
• Encourage those around your baby to be up to date with their whooping cough vaccine
• Have your baby get DTaP vaccines on time according to CDC’s immunization schedule [2 pages] starting at 2 months

Your vaccine during pregnancy could affect your baby’s response to his vaccine

There is a chance that your baby’s immune response to the first few doses of his DTaP vaccine may not be as strong after you get your whooping cough vaccine while pregnant. However, based on a recent study looking at this issue, this interference does not seem to cause any problems when it comes to protecting your baby. Researchers are still working to better understand this issue. The benefits of you getting the vaccine while pregnant outweigh this potential risk. Babies younger than 2 months old only have the antibodies they get from their mother to help protect them. Any protection that you can provide at this age is critical because young babies are most vulnerable to severe disease and death from whooping cough.

When you get your vaccine while pregnant, it is still critical that your baby gets all his vaccines according to the recommended schedule.

You can provide indirect protection to your baby by making sure everyone who is around him is up to date with their whooping cough vaccine. When your baby’s family members and caregivers get a whooping cough vaccine, they are not only protecting their own health, but also helping form a “cocoon” of disease protection around the baby during the first few months of life. Anyone who is around babies should be up to date with their whooping cough vaccine.

Your baby is most likely to catch whooping cough from someone at home

Researchers investigate reported cases of whooping cough to better understand the disease, including how it spreads. In some studies they have been able to identify how a baby caught whooping cough. They determined that in most cases, someone in the baby’s household, including parents and siblings, got the child sick. These studies also show that there are many other people that could get babies sick, including grandparents and caregivers.

Cocooning may help protect your baby from whooping cough

Encourage others to get a whooping cough vaccine at least 2 weeks before meeting your baby if they are not up to date with their whooping cough vaccines.

It is true that cocooning may indirectly protect your baby from whooping cough, but it might not be enough to prevent whooping cough illness and death. This is because cocooning does not provide any direct protection (antibodies) to your baby, and it can be difficult to make sure everyone who is around your baby has gotten their whooping cough vaccine. Since cocooning does not completely protect babies from whooping cough, it is even more important that you get the vaccine while you are pregnant; you will pass some short-term protection to your baby until he can get his own vaccine.

Cocooning, in combination with getting a whooping cough vaccine during your pregnancy and making sure your baby gets his vaccines on time, provides the best protection possible to your baby.

All adults should get vaccinated against whooping cough

Adults 19 years old or older should get a Tdap vaccine, even if they are not pregnant, if they have never received the shot before. This should be followed by either a Td or Tdap shot every 10 years.

Whooping cough vaccines are safe, but side effects can occur. CDC continually monitors the safety of all vaccines, which CDC holds to the highest standards of safety. Learn more about how new vaccines get licensed and how their safety is monitored.

The whooping cough vaccine is very safe for you and your baby

The whooping cough vaccine is very safe for pregnant women and their babies. Doctors and midwives who specialize in caring for pregnant women agree that the whooping cough vaccine is important to get during the third trimester of each pregnancy. Getting the vaccine during your pregnancy will not put you at increased risk for pregnancy complications.

CDC and a panel of experts who make vaccine recommendations (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) have studied the whooping cough vaccine recommended for pregnant women (called Tdap vaccine). They have concluded that it is very safe for pregnant women and their babies. These experts carefully reviewed the available safety data before recommending that women get the vaccine during every pregnancy.

• Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
  The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a national vaccine safety surveillance program, receives information from the public about possible side effects from various vaccines. CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) monitor VAERS to look for new safety concerns or trends (also called safety signals) after Tdap vaccination. Published studies that include VAERS data support the safe use of Tdap vaccine during pregnancy. To date, VAERS has not found any safety signals among pregnant women or their babies after Tdap vaccination.
• Manufacturer Pregnancy Registries
  Both manufacturers of Tdap vaccine (Sanofi Pasteur for Adacel® and GlaxoSmithKline for Boostrix®) created pregnancy registries to collect information from pregnant women who got Tdap vaccine. The manufacturers have not reported any safety signals to FDA.
• Safety History for Tetanus and Diphtheria Vaccines
  Tdap vaccine combines protection against tetanus and diphtheria, in addition to whooping cough. Vaccines that protect against tetanus and diphtheria are commonly associated with local reactions, such as redness, swelling, pain, and tenderness where the shot is given. Pregnant women have been getting both tetanus and diphtheria toxoids (Td) and tetanus toxoid (TT) vaccines worldwide since the 1960s to prevent tetanus among newborns. This long history provides researchers a lot of data to understand their safety. Getting tetanus vaccine during pregnancy is very safe for you and your baby.

You may experience side effects from the Tdap vaccine

Most side effects are mild, meaning they do not affect daily activities. They also get better on their own in a few days. The most common side effects from the Tdap vaccine include

• Redness, swelling, pain, and tenderness where you got the shot
• Body-ache
• Fatigue
• Fever

In adults who have received 2 doses of the Tdap vaccine, the most commonly reported side effect was pain where they got the shot.

Severe side effects are extremely rare, especially in adults.

There is a low risk of severe side effects from multiple Tdap doses

The Tdap vaccine combines protection against tetanus and diphtheria, in addition to whooping cough. Researchers have done studies on tetanus vaccines that do not contain protection against pertussis. These studies found that adults who receive 2 tetanus shots in a short time period (within 2 years) were no more likely than adults getting their first Tdap vaccine to have severe side effects. CDC and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists consider the benefits of Tdap vaccination in multiple pregnancies to outweigh theoretical (potential) risks.

Studies looked at the safety of giving multiple Tdap doses because there is a theoretical risk for severe local reactions (called hypersensitivity) if the tetanus component of the vaccine is given too often. An example of severe hypersensitivity would be the arm swelling from the shoulder to the elbow within 4 to 12 hours of getting the shot (the swelling goes away within 4 to 7 days). Manufacturers now make these vaccines with lower doses of the tetanus component than tetanus vaccines in the past. Experts believe this change likely reduced the risk of severe local reactions.

The whooping cough vaccine for children is very safe for your baby

DTaP is the name of the whooping cough vaccine for children (2 months through 6 years). The DTaP vaccine combines protection against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. Currently, there are 3 licensed formulations of the DTaP vaccine. Researchers conducted many different clinical trials on each vaccine to make sure of its safety. Results from clinical trials showed that these vaccines are very safe for infants and children. Doctors can safely give the DTaP vaccine at the same time as other vaccines.

Your baby may experience side effects from the DTaP vaccine

The most common side effects from the DTaP vaccine include:

• Fever (up to about 1 out of 4 children)
• Redness or swelling where the shot was given (up to about 1 out of 4 children)
• Soreness or tenderness where the shot was given (up to about 1 out of 4 children)

These problems occur more often after the 4 and 5 doses of the DTaP series than after earlier doses. Some children get swelling of the entire arm or leg in which the shot was given (up to about 1 out of 30 children) following the 4 or 5 dose of DTaP vaccine. If swelling occurs, it generally lasts for 1 to 7 days after the shot is given.

Other mild problems include:

• Fussiness (up to about 1 out of 3 children)
• Tiredness or poor appetite (up to about 1 out of 10 children)
• Vomiting (up to about 1 out of 50 children)

These problems generally occur 1 to 3 days after the shot is given.

Severe side effects are extremely rare. Learn more about side effects of the DTaP vaccine.

You cannot get whooping cough from whooping cough vaccines

Whooping cough vaccines cannot give you whooping cough since they do not contain any live bacteria. The whooping cough vaccines we use today for children and adults in the United States contain purified, inactivated parts of the bacterium that causes whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis).

Breastfeeding is safe after getting the whooping cough vaccine

Getting the whooping cough vaccine while breastfeeding is very safe for you and your baby. You can and should get the whooping cough vaccine if you plan to breastfeed or are currently breastfeeding. There are, however, some vaccines that CDC does not recommend for you to get while breastfeeding.

You can safely get the whooping cough and flu vaccine at the same time

You can get the whooping cough and flu vaccines at the same time during your pregnancy. You can also get them at different visits. If you are pregnant during flu season, you should get the flu vaccine by the end of October, if possible. But you can get the flu vaccine at any point during pregnancy. You do not have to wait until later in your pregnancy for the flu shot, like CDC recommends for the whooping cough vaccine.

You can safely get the Tdap vaccine even if you recently got a tetanus shot

It does not matter when you got your last tetanus shot (Td or Tdap vaccine) — you still need the Tdap vaccine during each pregnancy.

Whooping cough vaccines do not contain thimerosal

None of the whooping cough vaccines (Tdap and DTaP) currently used in the United States contain thimerosal.

You help protect your baby from whooping cough by getting the whooping cough vaccine called Tdap during pregnancy.

Babies whose mothers get Tdap during pregnancy are less likely to get whooping cough

A CDC evaluation* found Tdap vaccination during the third trimester of pregnancy prevents more than 3 in 4 cases of whooping cough in babies younger than 2 months old. These findings are similar to other studies showing Tdap vaccination during pregnancy is highly effective in protecting babies until they are old enough to start getting their own pertussis vaccines at 2 months old.

Getting Tdap during pregnancy also helps protect babies from serious complications

For babies who do get whooping cough, the infection is typically less serious if their mother received Tdap during pregnancy. A CDC evaluation found Tdap during the third trimester of pregnancy protected 9 in 10 babies from infections serious enough to need treatment in a hospital. A study in California looked at the type and length of hospital stays for babies with whooping cough. Babies whose mothers received Tdap during pregnancy were less likely to need care in a hospital or intensive care unit. They also had shorter hospital stays compared to babies born to mothers who did not get Tdap during pregnancy.

Since 2010, CDC has seen between 10,000 and 50,000 cases of whooping cough each year in the United States. Whooping cough is very serious for babies because it can cause them to stop breathing. About half of babies younger than 1 year old who get whooping cough need care in a hospital. In rare cases, whooping cough is deadly for babies. Up to 20 babies have died each year since 2010 from whooping cough in the United States. This is the story of one family who went through this tragedy.

Jazzlyn’s Story

Jamie and Oscar were excited to add a third child to their growing family. On Saturday, March 23, 2013, Jamie gave birth to a healthy baby girl they named Jazzlyn. “She was such a happy baby,” recalls Jamie. “She loved playing peek-a-boo and I would often catch her with a smile on her face.”

When Jazzlyn was about three weeks old, Jamie noticed that she had developed a slight cough. The pediatrician recommended using a humidifier and returning if she got worse. Several days later, Jazzlyn started having trouble breathing. “I heard a grunt and went to check on Jazzlyn. She was turning different shades of purple and not breathing,” Jamie remembers. “It was such a relief when she started crying.” Still concerned, Jamie decided to take Jazzlyn to the emergency room. While at the hospital, Jazzlyn stopped breathing again and the doctors had to revive her.

The next day, a helicopter took Jazzlyn to a hospital that could better handle her illness. There she received 7 medications and was hooked up to a ventilator (a machine to help her breathe). Her new doctor suspected that she had whooping cough. At first, Jazzlyn seemed to be doing better, but she took a turn for the worse. The doctors performed a procedure to help her breathe, but it only helped for a little while. The following day, doctors told Jamie and Oscar that Jazzlyn needed immediate surgery. “Our hearts dropped,” Jamie recalls. ”We decided to baptize her that night while all of our family was there.”

The next morning, Jamie and Oscar learned that there was nothing more the doctors could do. Jazzlyn’s kidneys had shut down and her heart was beginning to as well. At 11 am on April 25, 2013, Jazzlyn passed away peacefully. “She was too sick and her body was too weak to fight this,” Jamie explains.

Jazzlyn’s final diagnosis was pneumonia caused by whooping cough. They still don’t know how she got it.

“I want people to know how serious whooping cough can be and that it can be prevented,” says Jamie, who hadn’t heard of or been offered the whooping cough vaccine (also called Tdap) while she was pregnant. “Vaccines are really important and by getting this one, mothers can help protect their babies. If I get pregnant again, I would definitely get Tdap during my pregnancy to help protect my baby.”