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Why you need to get a whooping cough vaccine or booster today – Miracle Baby Itzbell’s Story

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Itzbell - survived whooping cough at 6 weeks old.It started as a little cough, no fever or vomiting just a little cough. But Zoraida Ruiz was conscientious and she took her little baby, just six weeks old, to be checked out. The doctors didn’t find anything. It happened again, baby Itzbell turned a little blue when she coughed, so mom took her back to the ER. Still the doctors could find nothing.  It was not until the third visit, when in the ER bonny Itzbell turned blue and then purple during a coughing fit that she was admitted to the hospital.

The diagnosis?
Itzbell had pertussis or whooping cough. 

What is Whooping Cough?
Whooping cough (pertussis) is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection.  A severe hacking cough followed by a high-pitched intake of breath that sounds like whoop is characteristic of whooping cough, but not always present.

At 8 pounds 6 ounces and full term Itzbell was a bonny and healthy baby at birth. Mom, Zoraida, had a healthy pregnancy and aware of the whooping cough risk had received Tdap immunization against whooping cough during pregnancy so that she wouldn’t transmit the deadly disease to her new baby.

“She was healthy. You never think that it’s going to happen to your baby. You wash your hands. You take precautions.”

But it all it takes is contact with one person who hasn’t maintained their immunizations and is infected to spread whooping cough.

At 6 weeks old Itzbell was too young to start her immunizations for whooping cough. She was vulnerable and she was exposed.

Once diagnosed, Itzbell had to spend fifty days in the TMC for Children Pediatric ICU with mom by her side, while dad Alex and their two older children, 6 years old and 12 years old, would visit in the evening.

Itzbell with mom Zoraida and dad AlexFor fifty days, Zoraida stayed close as her daughter fought for breath, watched as her daughter’s heart rate fluttered during coughing episodes, held her own breath as she watched the apnea monitor to make sure her baby was breathing. Sleeping was difficult. Respite came in little precious moments like when Nurse Danielle would take her for a walk to give Zoraida a little break.

During one episode that was particularly awful Itzbell’s IV came out, Zoraida explains, “There was seven people in the room trying to get the vein, but she was so small. If she hadn’t had so much hair they would have tried her head the doctor told me…I didn’t want to leave her, but it was so hard to watch. Itzbell couldn’t breath, her heart rate was going down.”

After fifty very long days, Itzbell was allowed to go home. Her parents, now infant CPR certified (a prerequisite of their daughter’s return), would still have to monitor their daughter closely. And it wasn’t just her breathing, Itzbell had to be cleared by a pediatric heart specialist and a pulmonary specialist to make sure that the disease had not had long-lasting impacts on her health.  And Itzbell’s long time in a crib amid wires and tubes had left her with torticollis that the pediatric Physical Therapists addressed after she had been released from the hospital.

Today when asked what she would say to those debating whether to immunize their children or themselves against whooping cough, Zoraida doesn’t hesitate to answer,

“I understand people don’t want to see their child hurt. I hurts me to see Itzbell cry after a shot, BUT to see her suffer, to see her with an IV and tubes…to worry whether she’s going to make it. One or two pokes rather than 15 in the hospital.”

Zoraida’s message is clear – immunize

whooping cough, pertussis What can I do?
Make sure you and your children are protected and make sure you’re not going to give it to others.

  1. If your baby that is not yet able to have the vaccines, insist that visitors not visit when sick and that anyone close to baby is up to date on their vaccines. The vaccine does wane after several years
  1. Make sure your children get a booster shot by 11 years old to protect against whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus.
  2. Adults.
    When you get your every 10-year tetanus and diphtheria vaccine make sure it includes vaccination again whooping cough. T-dap.
    This doesn’t just protect you, but also the risk of transmitting whooping cough to infants.

Pregnant women:
It is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control that pregnant women receive the pertussis vaccine between 27 weeks and 36 weeks of gestation.



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