There has been a resurgence of whooping cough among adults in the United Kingdom over the last 2 or 3 years. In one general practice, between July, 1979, and April, 1980, the adult patients included four women who were pregnant at the time of onset of their whooping cough. The diagnosis was based on relevant clinical history and positive serological evidence.Details of the four patients are given in Table 1. Two stated that they had not had whooping cough before, and two were uncertain. None of the patients knew whether she had been immunized in childhood. All patients suffered from a spasmodic cough. The duration of cough was variable. None of the women smoked. A search for other organisms which might be contributing to the patients' respiratory symptoms revealed a previous influenza infection in one patient.On diagnosis of pertussis, all four patients were given a course of erythromycin for 1 week. Patient 3 had already had a course of ampicillin from another general practitioner before diagnosis.No source of infection was known. One patient had a son with suspected whooping cough at the same time, which suggested a common source. Her husband, who was infected with Influenza B before she was, also subsequently developed whooping cough. One of the women was a nursing auxilliary in an adult respiratory disease ward situated beside infectious disease wards. In the absence of any other source, she may have been infected at work.After an otherwise normal antenatal period, all four patients had spontaneous vertex deliveries around term. One baby had to be followed up by the pediatricians because of thrombocytopenia (91 × 109/1) and a poor initial weight gain. The platelet count was within normal limits by 8 weeks of age, and his progress at 6 months was normal.All cord blood sera agglutinatedBordetella pertussistype 1.3 in various dilutions. No pattern emerged when the titers were related to the stage of gestation when symptoms started, the time from infection to delivery, or the height of maternal titers.
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