An expert U.S. panel is urging every expecting mother to get a shot preventing whooping cough, preferably in the last three months of her pregnancy to help protect her baby.
The advice follows a frightening resurgence of the dreaded childhood disease. More than 32,000 cases, including 16 deaths, have been reported so far this year in the U.S., and 2012 is on track to be the nation's worst year for whooping cough since 1959.
Flu shots have been recommended for pregnant women since the 1990s.
The new advice was approved in a vote Wednesday by the U.S. government's vaccine advisory panel. Federal health officials usually adopt the group's guidance and promote it to doctors and the public.
Whooping cough, or pertussis, is a highly contagious disease. Its name comes from the sound children make as they gasp for breath. Despite long-standing childhood immunizations, cases have been climbing in the past decade. Most are infants two months and younger - too young to be vaccinated because their immune systems are too immature.
