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The whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine is offered to all pregnant women between 16 and 32 weeks of pregnancy to protect their babies from this serious disease. You can have the vaccine after 32 weeks, but it may not offer the same level of protection. The vaccine is required in every pregnancy.
Whooping cough is spread by breathing in small droplets in the air from other people’s coughs and sneezes.
Symptoms of whooping cough in babies may include:
severe coughing fits
pauses in breathing
vomiting after coughing, and
a ‘whoop’ sound while coughing.
Young babies may not always develop the typical whoop sound while coughing. If you are worried that your baby may have whooping cough, you should contact your doctor straight away. The symptoms of whooping cough can last for two to three months.
Babies who are too young to be vaccinated against whooping cough are at higher risk of serious health problems such as severe lung infections (pneumonia) or, in rare cases, death. This includes babies under two months old, especially those whose mothers weren’t vaccinated during pregnancy between 16 to 32 weeks.
For more information about the symptoms of whooping cough, visit NHS 111 Wales - Health A-Z: Whooping cough (external site).
The protection you receive from the whooping cough vaccine passes to your unborn baby and helps protect them in the first few weeks of their life, until they have their first routine immunisation when they are eight weeks old.
The vaccine also protects you from getting whooping cough and lowers the risk of you passing it on to your baby.
There is no vaccine that only protects against whooping cough. The vaccine you will be given is a combined vaccine that protects against different diseases, including whooping cough. The vaccine is not live, and it cannot cause whooping cough. You will be offered one dose of the vaccine, which is given as an injection in the upper arm.
This vaccine is given to help protect you and your baby against whooping cough.
You can find more information on the vaccine and the disease it protects against at NHS 111 Wales - Vaccinations (external site).
All pregnant women can have the vaccine from week 16 of their pregnancy. It is better to have the vaccine between 16 and 32 weeks of pregnancy. While you can still get the vaccine after 32 weeks, it may not provide the same level of protection for your baby. This is because it takes time for the vaccine to work. It is important to be vaccinated in every pregnancy, even if you have had the vaccine before.
If you did not have the whooping cough vaccine while you were pregnant, you can still have it in the two months following the birth (until your child has their first routine dose). This will protect you and may prevent you from passing whooping cough on to your baby, although it will not directly protect the baby. If you are breastfeeding, there is no evidence of any risk to the baby caused by having the vaccine.
At eight weeks old, your baby will need to start having vaccinations for whooping cough as part of their NHS routine childhood immunisations. The whooping cough vaccine is offered to all babies as part of the NHS routine vaccination schedule.
The Routine immunisation schedules for Wales - Public Health Wales (nhs.wales) provides details about when your child’s vaccinations are due.
Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists information for the public (external site)
Pertussis/whooping cough vaccine | Vaccine Knowledge Project - ox.ac.uk (external site)