Whooping Cough and the Vaccine (Shot)

What are the symptoms of whooping cough?

Whooping cough usually starts with the following symptoms:

• Runny nose
• Mild cough
• A pause in breathing in babies (apnea)

Children and babies may then begin to develop these more serious problems:

• Coughing very hard, over and over. These coughing fits happen more at night.
• Gasping for breath after a coughing fit. They may make a “whooping” sound. This sound is where the name “whooping cough” comes from. Babies may not cough or make this sound—they may gag, gasp, or stop breathing.
• Difficulty breathing, eating, drinking, or sleeping.
• Turning blue from lack of oxygen.
• Vomiting after coughing fits.

Coughing fits can last for up to 10 weeks or more, and sometimes happen again the next time the child has a respiratory illness.

Is it serious?

Whooping cough is most dangerous for babies and young children. In fact, babies younger than 1 year old who have whooping cough may:

• Need to be cared for in the hospital
• Develop pneumonia (a serious lung infection)
• Have seizures
• Suffer brain damage

Whooping cough can even be deadly. About 7 in 10 deaths from whooping cough are among babies younger than 2 months old. These babies are too young to get whooping cough shots.

How does whooping cough spread?

Whooping cough spreads easily through the air when a person who has whooping cough breathes, coughs, or sneezes. Almost everyone who is not immune to whooping cough will get sick if exposed to it. A person can spread the disease from the very beginning of the sickness (when he has cold-like symptoms) and for at least 2 weeks after coughing starts.

Since symptoms can be mild for some people, your baby can catch whooping cough from adults, grandparents, or older brothers or sisters who don’t know they have the disease.

Do people still get whooping cough in the United States?

Before the whooping cough vaccines were recommended for all infants, about 8,000 people in the United States died each year from whooping cough. Today, because of the vaccine, this number has dropped to fewer than 20 per year.

But, cases of whooping cough have been increasing over the past several years, and outbreaks of whooping cough can occur.