Many babies with whooping cough never cough

Whooping cough — pertussis — takes 5 to 10 days to produce symptoms after
exposure, and sometimes as long as 3 weeks.

Early on it looks like a common cold, which is why **healthcare providers
often do not suspect or diagnose it until more severe symptoms appear.**

Early symptoms last 1 to 2 weeks:

• Runny or blocked nose
• Low-grade fever — under 100.4°F
• A mild, occasional cough

The part the name gets wrong

Many babies with whooping cough do not cough at all.

Instead they may have apnea — life-threatening pauses in breathing — which
may cause cyanosis, turning blue, or visible struggling to breathe.

**And for some babies, whooping cough may seem like a common cold for the
entire illness, not just at the beginning.**

So the disease most dangerous to infants presents in infants without its
defining symptom. A parent waiting for a cough, or for the whoop, is waiting
for something that may never arrive — while the actual sign is a baby who
stops breathing.

In everyone else

One to two weeks after the first symptoms, paroxysms begin — violent,
uncontrolled coughing fits. They usually last 1 to 6 weeks and **can last
up to 10**, and the cough generally gets worse and more frequent as the
illness goes on.

The fits can cause a high-pitched "whoop" on inhaling afterwards — the
sound the disease is named for, and the one that makes it recognisable in an
older child or adult.

Talk to a healthcare provider if you have concerns about whooping cough —
and particularly if a baby is having pauses in breathing, whatever their cough
is or is not doing.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.