A free whooping cough vaccine will be offered to pregnant women in the ACT in line with new research indicating it can help protect the baby after birth.
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ACT Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly said he expected about one in five women to take up the program this year, although he hoped that would increase next year.
He said while it would be a relatively low rate of uptake initially, Canberrans had a good track record with immunisation.
"We are routinely at 90 per cent and approaching 95 per cent for children having their vaccinations on time in Canberra," Dr Kelly said.
"There is currently an anti-vaccination movement and that is strong in other states ... We don't just vaccinate for fun, we vaccinate to prevent diseases that can be very dangerous and fatal in some circumstances."
Dr Kelly said the reason for many mums-to-be to not vaccinate while pregnant was representative of the long-held fear that medicine could harm the baby.
"The general rule is don't have medicine, don't have a vaccine, don't have medical procedures when pregnant," Dr Kelly said.
"That's why it has taken some time to get the right amount of evidence, saying it [the whooping cough vaccine] is not only effective but also safe.
"Australia-wide there [are] one or two, sometimes more deaths every year from whooping cough and it's usually that very young child group."
Although vaccinations may not be 100 per cent effective, babies cannot be vaccinated for whooping cough until they are two months old. The vaccine during pregnancy has been found to help pass on the mother's immunity to the unborn child to protect it in the first few weeks of life.
"Very young children are the ones that are not only at most risk of contracting pertussis but also becoming very severely sick with it, like in that tragic death in Western Australia," Dr Kelly said.
The ACT government funded program follows an update to the 10th edition of the Australian Immunisation Handbook on March 27 recommending the vaccine in the third trimester of pregnancy.
Eleonor Pritchard is in her 35th week of pregnancy. She plans to get the free vaccine to help protect herself and her baby from whooping cough.
"Any immunity I can pass on to my baby would be really good," Ms Pritchard said.
ACT Health Minister Simon Corbell said outbreaks of pertussis were known to occur every three to four years, the most recent in the ACT in 2010 to 2011-12. He said an increase in whooping cough notifications was expected in the coming years.
The free vaccine will be offered to pregnant women in their third trimester from later this month, from their GP or the maternity services at Canberra's public hospitals.
