Information for pregnant mums on whooping cough vaccine

  • The number of babies dying of whooping cough is increasing.
  • The babies that die of whooping cough are often infected before they are old enough to be vaccinated.
  • The only way to protect your baby is to get yourself vaccinated when you are pregnant, ideally between week 28 and week 32 of pregnancy. That way, your baby receives antibodies from you to protect them.

  • Since being routinely introduced in 2012, data from 20,000 women who have received the vaccine during pregnancy show that there is no evidence of an increase in the risk of congenital abnormalities or stillbirths.

  • Babies born to women vaccinated against whooping cough in pregnancy have one-tenth (10%) of developing severe whooping cough compared to babies born to unvaccinated mothers.

The whooping cough vaccine is available all year round.

Please ask your midwife for more information or book yourself into your GP practice to be vaccinated.


For more information about the whooping cough vaccine:

Improving the physical and emotional health and wellbeing of expectant mothers, infants, children and young people throughout Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Area.

(N.B: The Family and Therapies team at ABUHB is NOT responsible for the content on the webpage links that we refer to in our resource sections and linked information to external sites. All information was accurate and appropriate at the time the webpage was created.)

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