All pregnant women are advised to have two vaccinations when they are pregnant. Vaccines helps your body's natural defense system. The immune system to develop protective antibodies and these antibodies fight disease and produce long term protection.
The first vaccine you will be offered is a vaccine to protect you and your unborn baby against flu. Flu is highly infectious and in most cases we will present with aches and pains, fever, headache and tiredness and you will probably require a few days in bed. In some more severe cases women have been admitted to hospital and sadly there are reported cases of patients dying from flu and complications that can arise.
Pregnant women are at increased risk because in pregnancy your immune system is naturally weakened to ensure a successful pregnancy. But this can mean that you do not fight infection as well as you would when you're not pregnant.
Flu vaccination is offered to all women usually from September through to the end of March and you can have the vaccine at any stage of your pregnancy. But the earlier you have it the earlier you are protected. Flu vaccine has been routinely offered to pregnant women since 2009 and all the evidence shows that this is a safe vaccine to have.
The second vaccine we advise is a vaccination to protect your baby from whooping cough. This is a highly infectious disease that can be very serious for newborn babies and around 300 babies a year are admitted to hospital.
We vaccinate you when you are pregnant and the antibodies that develop will pass through the placenta to protect your baby. This protection will only last for the first few weeks after birth and then your baby should have the whooping cough vaccine at eight weeks.
You can have the whooping cough vaccine from 20 weeks of pregnancy and it is available from your GP surgery. It is important that you repeat the vaccine with each pregnancy as this vaccine is to protect your baby.
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