Whooping cough: prevention is the best medicine

Important with whooping cough: You have to make a very clear distinction as to who is affected. For older children, adolescents and adults, it is a total nuisance, because you may cough badly for six to eight weeks, or even longer. For small babies, especially in the first six months, whooping cough is a dangerous disease. In the worst case, it can lead to respiratory failure, which can even be fatal. It is therefore particularly important to prevent small babies from catching the disease.

This is why it is very important to vaccinate babies at an early age and to ensure that the child's parents, grandparents etc. are well immunised. For some years now, the STIKO has been recommending - not without good reason - that pregnant women should definitely be vaccinated against whooping cough during pregnancy, i.e. have a booster. This offers very good protection for the baby after birth.

How do I actually recognise whooping cough? The problem is: It starts like a normal cold, a simple cold, then you feel a little better - and then comes the second phase, in which there are nasty coughing attacks. The textbook saying is that the cough sounds wheezy, rattling and the tongue sticks out a little. However, this is not always the case. The problem is that you often only realise that it could be whooping cough after three to four weeks. And by then, you've had it, you can no longer take antibiotic treatment, you're basically no longer contagious and you just have to put up with it - possibly with symptomatic aids to calm the cough and so on.

It is therefore important to make sure that your children and those around you have a good whooping cough vaccination. This is by far the most important thing.