1ST CITY CLINICAL HOSPITAL

The author of the article is pediatric resuscitator Zhukovskaya A.A.

Whooping cough is an infectious disease characterized by an uncontrollable, severe, painful cough. Episodes of coughing last from a few seconds to 2–3 minutes and lead to choking and vomiting. Coughing attacks end with a loud, high-pitched “cock crow.” This is the sound of a child frantically trying to breathe in air between repeated coughing attacks. Repeated episodes of painful coughing are called “paroxysms,” which gives the condition another name called “paroxysmal cough.” Doctors themselves sometimes call whooping cough the “100-day cough,” which is due to its duration, which is about 6–8 weeks, and the intensity of the attacks gradually decreases. Can lead to complications: pneumonia, acute encephalitis, respiratory arrest and even death. Such respiratory arrest is especially dangerous for children in the first year of life, who sometimes (more often than at any other age) die from whooping cough.

DTaP vaccination is recommended for all pregnant women, regardless of their previous whooping cough vaccination. This is designed to protect babies from whooping cough until they are two months old - that is, until they can be vaccinated themselves. At the same time, this vaccine protects against diphtheria and tetanus, as it contains diphtheria and tetanus toxoids. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that pregnant women receive the vaccine in the third trimester of each pregnancy, between 27 and 36 weeks. The main transport of maternal antibodies to vaccine antigens to the child through the placenta occurs only at the end of the second or third trimester.

It is extremely dangerous if pregnant women get whooping cough in the last 1-2 months before giving birth. Children are born healthy, but immediately become infected from their mothers during breastfeeding. After a few days, newborns develop a cough characteristic of whooping cough (as a rule, such children cannot be saved).

In the Republic of Belarus, a vaccine with a reduced content of pertussis component is used. It is intended for vaccination of persons over 7 years of age, including pregnant women.

Vaccination with DTP whooping cough is recommended during every pregnancy. The amount of antibodies remaining several months after vaccination is enough to protect the mother of the child for several years, but it is not enough to protect the fetus from whooping cough during the next pregnancy. If vaccination was given before conception, the vaccine should be given again during pregnancy between 27 and 36 weeks of gestation.