Cocooning may protect newborns from whooping cough - Source: Thrive, the Children’s Hospital Boston blog
childrenshospitalblog.org/help-protect-your-n...Posted Sep 17, 2010, 8:05 PM UTC
104
childrenshospitalblog.org
“Studies show children who aren’t vaccinated against whooping cough are at a much higher risk of getting and spreading it,”
I don't understand who wouldn't want to get their children vaccinated.
1
Parents of children less than 8 weeks old.
The important point to take from the article is that the rest of us can protect the newborns we come into contact with by getting ourselves vaccinated. Vaccines work in us, but don't yet work in them.
The largest and most vulnerable population for diseases typically immunized against is newborns under 2 months of age. Because their new immune systems are not yet ready for vaccinations, every child in America spends their first eight weeks of life unprotected from diseases like pertussis.
3
Vaccines aren't just for kids. I contracted whooping cough in 07 even though I'd been vaccinated as a kid. How many people did I infect before I knew just what I had? Someone suggested it in passing because I'd been coughing so much. I thought, No, it can't be whooping cough. I was vaccinated... this is just a really bad cold... I had no idea. None. Only when I practically passed out in the clinic during a coughing fit did a nurse go, "Holy shit, you have whooping cough." Those were his exact words. Holy shit, you have whooping cough. After that I became a hermit. I left my dorm room to get food and go to class. That's it. I did my best to keep away from others and bundled up as much as possible so I wouldn't get anyone else sick. I missed out on the best chunk of my senior year because of that damned disease... and if I'd had a booster I'd have been safe.
There needs to be a nation-wide booster campaign for adults. Get your boosters. Not just for those who work in the medical profession or work around children... everyone should get a booster. The only way to ensure immunity is to maintain it.
Get your booster.
Get it.
Go.
Get it.
Boosters!
This and also the herd immunity around you must be less than ideal, hence you picked it up.
Good herd immunity from a high vaccination rate not only protects the most at-risk groups (children/babies in this case) but also adults with weakened immune systems who can pick up the infections too easily, e.g pregnant women and the elderly, and the small number who responded poorly to previous vaccines and boosters.