Mum shares heartbreaking photo of baby girl after ‘rattly cough’ turned out to be killer Victorian disease
A NEWBORN baby spent 10 days in a coma after contracting whooping cough.
One-month-old Polly Deehy had a rattly cough and laboured breathing when she was just two weeks old on April 6.
After four days coughing at home, mum Kerry Pearson rushed her baby to Darrent Valley Hospital, in Kent, when she stopped breathing and turned blue.
Just three days later Polly was transferred to St Mary’s Hospital, London, where she was put on life-support and an induced coma, to help her breathe and let her body recover.
Tests for whooping cough – also known as pertussis – came back positive the next day.
Polly is now awake and breathing independently and her mum, Kerry, 26, says her daughter is lucky to have come through the illness unscathed.
“We caught it in time so she was in hospital, but if she’d had those blue episodes at home she’d have suffered lasting damage because of the lack of oxygen,” she said.
This has been an absolute living nightmare
Kerry Deehy
Kerry and her partner, Jack Deehy, 29, a forklift driver, knew nothing about whooping cough when their baby was diagnosed with the illness in hospital.
“It was just something from my grandparents’ era,” she said.
“There’s no treatment and no cure – we’re just having to wait and it’s unbearable.”
Although it may sound like a disease from the Victorian times, according to new data from public health bodies, cases of whooping cough are rising in the UK.
The bacterial infection is also known ‘100-day cough’ due to its long-lasting symptoms, infects the lungs and respiratory system, causing severe coughing fits and flu-like symptoms.
Most people make a full recovery, but in babies under three months old up to three per cent may die.
While most children under six months will require hospitalisation.
About one in 50 babies under one year will suffer seizures, and one in 150 will have encephalopathy (swelling of the brain).
“This has been an absolute living nightmare. We feel so blessed that she’s such a little fighter,” Kerry said.
PLUMMETING VACCINE UPTAKE
Pregnant women need to be vaccinated to protect their newborns against whooping cough, because they cannot be jabbed themselves until they are two months old.
However the latest data on the maternal whooping cough vaccine programme shows that uptake of the jab has dropped to its lowest level in seven years.
In Britain, around 70 per cent of pregnant women were jabbed for pertussis in 2017.
But by 2023, that number dropped to around 58 per cent, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
Kerry had a whooping cough vaccine when she was a child, and again during her pregnancy with her son, now seven.
She wasn’t offered the vaccine when pregnant with Polly, she claims.
“If I’d had the vaccine during my pregnancy I’d have passed on the antibodies in my breastmilk,” she said.
“The vaccine should be routinely offered with every pregnancy.
“I just want people to be aware – you should have the whooping cough vaccine when you’re pregnant.
“If you’re not offered it then please demand it.
“If you’re an anti-vaxxer please reconsider – this is deadly to infants – it’s not worth the risk.
“Nothing is worth going through what we’re going through.”
There were 1,468 cases of the disease in January and February 2024, compared to 858 for 2023, according to UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) figures.
The last peak year, back in 2016, saw 5,949 cases in England.
Experts say it could be a hangover from restrictions during the Covid pandemic when social distancing measures like masks, which meant fewer viruses circulated and immunity dropped.
Kerry said: “We need to educate people about the vaccine and the symptoms.
“Whooping cough is dangerous to newborns and I want people to know what to look out for.”
Whooping cough symptoms
WHOOPING cough (pertussis) is a bacterial infection of the lungs and breathing tubes.
The first signs of whooping cough are similar to a cold, such as a runny nose and sore throat (a high temperature is uncommon).
After about a week, you or your child:
- will get coughing bouts that last for a few minutes and are worse at night
- may make a “whoop” sound – a gasp for breath between coughs (young babies and some adults may not “whoop”)
- may have difficulty breathing after a coughing bout and may turn blue or grey (young infants)
- may bring up a thick mucus, which can make you vomit
- may become very red in the face (more common in adults)
The cough may last for several weeks or months.
Source: NH