Another link

[velvetpage]

Study finds parents are the most likely people to pass whooping cough to babies.

The moral of the story: keeping your vaccinations up to date (read: every ten years) is critically important for people planning to have babies and people who are often around small children. Also, think twice about delaying a pertussis vaccination for a newborn. Your vaccination and theirs could save their life.

Comments

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

Whooping cough is *not* fun. I had it when I was 17 or 18 and it was just painful and bad.

I was not vaccinated because of a bad reaction, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as it doesn't protect you forever.

interesting to note, though, that you cannot test for whooping cough once you are whooping--the test always comes out negative. if you test for it during the regular cough phase(before you dry out and you just think you've got a regular cough) you can detect it, but people almost never get tested unless they know they've been in contact with whooping cough. It's probably around that time when you can pass along pertussis without knowing you have it. My doctor said the only way to diagnose it at that point is to listen to the cough, which is what she did...she made me wait for 30 minutes while she treated other patients and listened to my horrible cough that echoed through the hallways the entire time.