During pregnancy, mothers-to-be can be vaccinated against whooping cough from the second trimester to protect their infants in whom this pathology is particularly dangerous.
- Whooping cough causes exhausting and repeated bouts of coughing for several weeks, which can also cause vomiting.
- Between 2013 and 2021, 993 cases of pertussis required hospitalization in children under 12 months, including 604 in children under three months.
- Vaccination against this respiratory infection has a good safety profile and is not associated with an increased risk of adverse events in pregnant women, the fetus or the newborn.
Bordetella pertussis. This is the name of the bacteria responsible for whooping cough, a highly contagious respiratory tract infection. This disease can become serious in certain fragile people, such as the elderly and pregnant women, but also babies under six months old. In these infants, whooping cough can lead to hospitalization. “Over 90% of pertussis deaths occur in newborns and children under six months of age,” indicates the High Authority of Health (HAS). This is why the health authority now recommends vaccination against whooping cough for future mothers.
Protect your baby by getting vaccinated against whooping cough from the second trimester of pregnancy
In a press release published on April 12it specifies that the vaccine must be received from the second trimester of pregnancy of each pregnancy, preferably between 20 and 36 weeks of amenorrhea. “The newborn will thus be protected thanks to the transplacental passage of the mother’s antipertussis antibodies”, can we read in the notice. According to the data analyzed by the HAS, this vaccination reduces hospitalizations in infants under two months of age and also reduces mortality from whooping cough in newborns under three months of age.
If the pregnant woman was not able to benefit from the whooping cough vaccine during her pregnancy, the health authority recommends that the mother be vaccinated before leaving the maternity ward, even if she is breastfeeding. She also advises “maintaining the cocooning strategy, which consists of vaccinating those around you (parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.) as quickly as possible at the birth of the child”.
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