In Today's Health, a new method to protect babies from Whooping-Cough and why it has to start at birth.
Pregnant women will soon be asked to roll up their sleeves for a vaccine that doctors say will protect them and their newborn baby from one of the most contagious illnesses circulating right now.
It's not the flu. It's whooping cough.
(SOT: Michael Macknin, MD, Pediatrician, Cleveland Clinic)
"There's a tremendous outbreak of whooping cough across the United States right now, and the people, and the children actually, that are most susceptible to severe whooping cough are the children under two months of age."
Newborns can't get vaccinated until they're two months old.
It takes five doses of the t-dap vaccine, spread out from two-months to kindergarten age, to immunize a child against whooping-cough.
A government advisory panel is trying to have babies immunized at birth by vaccinating their mothers in the last trimester of pregnancy.
Dr. Cody Meissner was part of the panel that developed the recommendation.
(sot: Cody Meissner, MD, professor of pediatrics, Tufts University School of Medicine)
"by vaccinating the mother, mother will then pass her immunity to the baby, and when baby is born that baby will have protection."
But the vaccine is not perfect. Kids who are fully immunized usually start to lose protection after about five years.
Boosters are recommended for adolescents, and suggested for everyone over age nineteen.
(sot: Cody Meissner, MD, professor of pediatrics, Tufts University School of Medicine)
"The organisms that cause these infectious diseases are still around us, and if people do not get vaccinated they run the risk of getting infected."
By adding pregnant women to the list of those who need the vaccine, doctors hope to make a drastic cut in infections among those who need the most protection.
Erika Edwards, NBC news.
TXT 24
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