The battle over vaccinating grandparents

The more I read, the more I agreed with my midwife’s advice. But my father wasn’t convinced. He believed his childhood vaccine was still protecting him from pertussis. The C.D.C. says the effectiveness of childhood vaccinations against pertussis wanes over time, and recommends that adults over 65, even those who were vaccinated as children, get the Tdap vaccine if they are going to be in contact with infants under 12 months old.

My father questioned whether recent news reports of a “whooping cough resurgence” were overblown. I certainly wasn’t the first person to have a baby — why weren’t his siblings and friends who were also becoming grandparents being asked to update their vaccines? (They are, but the recommendation has been slow to spread.) The more I pestered him, the more he dug in his heels.

We weren’t the only ones struggling with this difficult conversation. The topic of whether family and friends of a new baby should get an updated Tdap vaccine frequently arises on online parenting message boards, and the discussion often becomes quite heated.