Whooping cough experience
I'm a FTM, currently 33 weeks pregnant, and an exchange I had with a vaccination nurse while getting my whooping cough jab made me want to post this - she said she had never actually met anyone who'd had whooping cough and I have so here goes.
I got whooping cough in 2016. It turns out there was an outbreak in our office but the people who started it didn't realise what they had because the "whooping" takes a while to start. It was absolutely horrific. It started like a cold that made me feel like hell - as a fit 26 year old - and then the cough came.
It's super violent coughing and after each one you have a moment where you can't breathe, it's like being frozen while you're suffocating. Then you take a massive breath in, which is what causes the whooping sound, and the cycle continues. I didn't shake the cough fully for 3 months and it was confirmed as whooping cough by a blood test arranged by my GP.
I can't imagine how distressing it would be going through that pregnant or watching a baby suffer it. This isn't to make anyone change their minds on vaccination but just to get my experience out there in case it's useful in decision making because I didn't realise how rare whooping cough cases in adults actually are.