CDC panel: Whooping cough vaccine OK for pregnant women

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DRUID HILLS, GA -- Utah has seen a dramatic rise in the number of cases of whooping cough in the last few years, with four cases in Cache County alone during May.

The disease is most dangerous for infants. Of the roughly 200 people to die of pertussis in the last decade, 78 percent were infants less than 1 month old, and another 12 percent in children 2-3 months.

Symptoms of whooping cough

The symptoms of whooping cough usually occur in two stages.

First stage
Runny nose
sneezing
Possibly low-grade fever
Second stage
Uncontrolled coughing spells or fits
Possible whooping noise when child breathes in
Can last for 6-10 weeks

If your child has these symptoms keep them home and contact your health care provider.

The best method for preventing and containing the disease is vaccination, according to the CDC, and in order to make those vaccines more effective, they are now suggesting that pregnant mothers get the pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus (DtaP) vaccine in their third trimester. The idea is that both the mother and the child are inoculated at the same time. The child is very likely to be born with an immunity, thus decreasing the chances of infection - or unthinkably, death - in those especially vulnerable first months of a newborn's life.

Previously, the CDC had recommended a method of prevention called "cocooning," where everyone that is expected to be in immediate contact with the infant would be inoculated just after birth, including the father, mother, siblings, grandparents, and anyone else who would be close to the child.

This "cocooning" method has proven to be ineffective by itself, according to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the committee that made the recommendation to the CDC, which still has to vote to adopt it.

The idea is to both vaccinate the mother in the third trimester as well as close contacts, and continue on a vaccination schedule for the child after that, which normally occurs at 2, 4, and 6 months.

Precisely how vaccination in the third trimester will affect the child's response to further vaccines after birth is not yet known.