Pertussis: Whooping Cough

The disease that I picked was Pertussis also known as “Whooping cough”, it comes from the Latin words “intensive cough”. It causes an inspiration whooping and it also can cause posttussive vomiting, apnea with or without cyanosis, paroxysms of coughing. Pertussis is a very highly contagious disease and can be caught by “direct contact with respiratory droplets from mucus membranes.” (Myra Carmon, 2010 p. 239) Pertussis began in the 1980s, but in 2012 the disease peaked again leaving 48,277 children being treated and 20 deaths. Most cases in the last few years have been coming up in older children and adults, they may experience a prolong cough and mild symptoms. (CDC, 2016 Para 1) For these reasons doctors recommend that in a pregnant woman’s third trimester that they get the Dtap shot so the vaccine can cross the …show more content…
It can be very deadly in children, and some children do not cough when they have whooping cough. If whooping cough gets very fatal it can cause a baby to stop breathing (CDC, 2013 para 1). There are three stages of pertussis catarrhal, paroxysmal, and the last stage being convalescent. The catarrhal relates to symptoms of the common cold which are usually easily dismissed such as runny nose, mild cough and sneezing, the paroxysmal stage is when the symptoms start to “get worse such as spasmodic coughing or whooping cough.” (Regena Spratling, 2010 p. 239). The whooping cough may not show up in children under six months of age. Some Complications with pertussis include, Loss of weight and bladder control, passing out, and rib fractures with severe coughing and can also cause death in babies. Outbreaks of Pertussis “has been linked to exposure from infected healthcare workers” (ANA, para 6). Children between the ages of 7-10 and 13-14 are at the highest risk other than babies for contracting Pertussis, usually they get it from family members not knowing they have it or from health care