Yanno, I made sure to get a flu shot this year, and totally forgot I should get that tetanus updated, too. I guess I should add the pertussis as well. That would really suck to get, way more than the flu.
It was obvious I misread the tone of this post as sarcasm rather than agreement and probably overreacted. I’m sorry. I just don’t get the anti-vax “movement” and never will.
I just want to third this. If you live in a state where Pharmacists are legally allowed to give vaccines other then the flu vaccine, they should be able to get the DTaP vaccine without even seeing a doctor. The vaccine is a killed virus, so it can’t cause the disease, so there is no reason not to get it (unless allergic, but I think you would have mentioned if that was the case).
One thing to be aware of, the vaccine only prevents infection with pertussis, it doesn’t cure it. There is a few week window between when you get the vaccine and when it makes you totally immune. Also, pertussis has a 7 to 10 day incubation period before symptoms are present but are still highly contagious, so, they should have the vaccine one month before being with the baby to be 100% sure they don’t have, and are immune, to the disease.
Oh, and since it is spread via an airborne route, if you have people who are not vaccinated, face masks are the most effective way to prevent the spread, but the bacteria can live for a little while on surfaces such as hands, so use alcohol hand sanitizers or have them wash their hands too.
Remember, Pertussis is mostly annoying to someone over 10 years old, but DEADLY to babies under 1 year. As a medical practitioner, I would have absolutely no problems keeping non-vaccinated people away from my young child (if I had one that is).
ETA:
FYI: the DTaP has the tetanus vaccine in it. That’s that the “T” stands for. So it is only one shot if you actually get the DTaP. Tetanus alone is called Td…
Last winter I happened to hear a discussion regarding this on the radio. The doctor mentioned that one of the difficulties with a whooping cough epidemic is that it is largely spread by adults who don’t know they have it because it presents differently in adults.
I was able to use this advice to get one of the guys at work out of visiting a friend of his wife’s to coo over a newborn. Not only did he not have to go, he looked considerate.
Frankly, if it were my baby, it would depend on where I lived - in California where pertussis is back in a big way? Yes. Here? No. But everybody has their own comfort level with germs. I wouldn’t at all be offended if, as somebody said earlier in this thread, a mother asked me to wash my hands before handling her newborn.
On the other hand, I’ve been meaning to ask my doctor about getting re vaccinated just because I’m a public librarian and come into contact with all sorts of amazing germs, plus my dad is not in the best of health and I don’t want to give him anything.
Yeah, I’d read that in a recent update on a medical app on my iPhone - adults often don’t get that characteristic “whooping cough” and can thus spread it without knowing. Since I work in the medical field, I went that day (a couple weeks ago) to our Employee Health clinic and got the DTaP vaccine for free. That night, I read about an outbreak here in the suburbs of Chicago.
Ignore everybody else in the thread.
Your baby, you make the rules. Screw anybody else, it isn’t their baby. They don’t want to get the vax, they don’t get to see the baby until it is at least 6 months old and has had its own set of vax.
Ignore any wishy washy ‘will it hurt their feelings’ crap. Bottom line, your baby, your rules. You want to do the best job protecting the little critter you can. Your doctor has told you certain precautions that would be wise to make. You need to decide to take those precautions or not. Your baby’s safety does not depend on the opinions of anybody else, just you and your spouse, with advice from the medical professional.
I had whooping cough at the age of 5 months, and I almost didn’t survive. It left me amazingly able to roll any illness into pneumonia. I spent anywhere from 2 weeks to a month and a half with pneumonia every year until I was about 12-13 years old. Redamaging my lungs with phosgene exposure brought back and enhanced my ability to get pneumonia at the drop of a microbes hat.
Yeah, I’ve read that only kids of a certain age generally have the “whoop”; babies and adults generally don’t. Without it, it can “only” seem like a persistent normal cough.
Speaking of the vaccine, is it possible to get ONLY the pertussis vaccine? I had my tetanus shot updated recently, but I was deliberately given only the Td, for some reason.
Perfectly reasonable to ask. I think poster mischievous hit the nail on the head. Anti-vaxxers are my most hated group of people. Bring on the anti-gay, anti-choice lobby any day. But the anti-vaxxers represent a special place in Hell because their idiocy affects small children.
Well, I wouldn’t go out and get vaccinated for anyone’s baby, but I wouldn’t be volunteering to spend any time with the baby either. To summarize – meh.
Yeah, the high privilege of being around a baby that ain’t mine is one I’d be wiling to sacrifice for…pretty much any reason. Or no reason at all.
To tell the truth, I would rather spend time risking my health hanging out with the unvaccinated Jenny McCarthy.
Actually happened to me recently. My Sister in law had her baby a week ago, but a couple of months back my wife and I were told if you want to have any contact with bub you need to get the whooping cough vaccine.
At the time I thought it was stupid, and yet another overreaction by my sister in law (long stories there). But A) to keep the peace and B) lets face it, it was a small invconvience and only cost 50 bucks or so, it wasn’t particuarly onerous. I went ahead and got the shot.
I still think it was overkill on the mothers part, for us to have it, especially since I very much doubt I will have anything approaching often or prolonged contact with the babe. But ironically enough, a couple of weeks after getting the shot I did read in the paper that Queensland is in the midst of a whooping cough epidemic. I think the # of reported cases has increased from something like <300 in 2007, to >2,600 this year.
I think you might have better luck convincing someone like me that I should get vaccinated to protect myself from catching something from the baby, rather than the other way around.
Hi all!
An update - my bro- and sis-in-law (and their daughter) had all already had the vaccine, thanks to check-ups earlier this year. My mom- and dad-in-law have decided to go ahead and get their vaccinations at the local pharmacy, so they wouldn’t have to visit the doctor. Everyone was very cool about it, which makes me super happy.
And as some folks here have mentioned, a lot of places are experiencing an outbreak of whooping cough, so the in-laws all understood how important it was if they planned to spend significant time at all with the baby.
Thanks for your input.
Smaje
Glad it worked out so well!
Coming in a little late to the party, but congrats! Sounds like everyone is really cool about it.
Frankly, because of my job which puts me a) in contact with the part of the public most likely to have a gross disease, and b) in contact with the same part of the public which might be most vulnerable I’ve been thinking of getting the vaccine without even having a child around. It’s not advertized at my local drug store like the flu vaccine is (I don’t live in a part of the country that’s having a resurgence) - do you reckon they have it, or do I have to call my doctor?
Whooping cough is far more dangerous for little babies than adults. Babies face a one in one hundred risk of death and a one in two hundred and fifty risk of brain damage from whooping cough. Whooping cough isn’t pleasant in adults either but the long term risks are much lower.
Little kids, OTOH, are often serious germ spreaders for everyone. They get a lot more colds than adults do.
Depends on the state you are in. Some states allow pharmacists to administer any vaccine, others only allow the flu vaccine. Best thing to do is to call them and find out.
Oh, and advertising doesn’t have much to do with anything. People look for the Flu shot, they don’t look for other vaccines normally, so it isn’t worth advertising like the Flu shot is.