Whooping Cough vaccines

The NHS currently offers pregnant women a vaccination against whooping cough which protects them and their newborn babies, who are especially vulnerable to this potentially deadly infection.  But new research from Imperial College London, found that only 63%  of women surveyed were aware they could have a whooping cough vaccination, and only 26% had actually been vaccinated.

The results, which have been published in the journal “Vaccine”, were based on a survey of 200 pregnant women in London,  over a one-year period from May 2013 to June 2014. Other results from the study indicate that many women were not offered the vaccine and of those who were but who turned it down lack of information from healthcare professionals, and uncertainties over the risk and benefit of the vaccine were the biggest factors.

Professor Beate Kampmann, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial and study author, said: “It’s a tragedy when any baby dies, but to die of an easily preventable disease is shocking. Understanding the barriers to antenatal pertussis vaccine uptake is essential to inform longer term strategies for controlling this disease and preventing unnecessary deaths.”

Dr Beverly Donaldson, research midwife from this study, said: “Our data showed that women overwhelmingly rely on and trust the advice and guidance of healthcare professionals to help them make informed healthcare decisions during pregnancy, and this is key to improving uptake. Many of the women who declined the pertussis vaccine displayed doubts and misconceptions about the vaccine, this suggests that the information they received was difficult to interpret.”

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