Vaccines in pregnancy in the UK

What you are offered

Three vaccines are routinely offered to everyone who is pregnant on the NHS: whooping cough, RSV and flu. All three are free, all three are given to protect the baby as much as you, and none of them contains a live version of the virus or bacterium it protects against.

The mechanism is the same in each case. You make antibodies, those antibodies cross the placenta, and the baby is born already carrying protection for the months before they are old enough to be vaccinated themselves. That is why the timing windows matter so much — they are set to maximise antibody transfer, not for your convenience.

Whooping cough — from 16 weeks, usually at 20

The NHS gives the whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine usually at around 20 weeks, and you can have it from 16 weeks. The best protection comes from being vaccinated before 32 weeks. Newborn babies cannot have their own whooping cough vaccine until they are eight weeks old, and those first eight weeks are when whooping cough is most dangerous to them. Maternal vaccination is what covers that gap.

You are offered this in every pregnancy, regardless of whether you were vaccinated in a previous one.

RSV — from 28 weeks

Respiratory syncytial virus is the leading cause of bronchiolitis in infants. The NHS offers the RSV vaccine from 28 weeks of pregnancy, normally around the time of your 28-week antenatal appointment, and having it as soon as possible from 28 weeks gives the best protection. It is a single injection into the upper arm.

Protection passed to the baby covers roughly the first six months after birth, which is the window in which RSV puts most babies in hospital. Unlike some maternal vaccines, the NHS recommends it in every pregnancy. If you go past 28 weeks without having it, you can still have it later — up to the point of labour — though earlier is better.

Flu — at any stage during flu season

The inactivated seasonal flu vaccine is offered at any point in pregnancy while flu is circulating. Pregnancy changes how your immune system, heart and lungs work, and that makes flu more likely to become severe. The vaccine reduces both your chance of catching it and the severity if you do, and it passes some protection to the baby.

COVID-19: read this carefully, it has changed

Pregnancy on its own no longer makes you eligible for a routine NHS COVID-19 vaccination. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, in its statement covering 2025 and spring 2026, advised that vaccinating pregnant women who are otherwise healthy would be highly unlikely to be cost-effective, and pregnancy is not listed as a separate eligible cohort.

You can still be vaccinated if you fall into an eligible group on other grounds — for example being aged 75 or over, or being immunosuppressed. If you do qualify, JCVI advises that pregnant women should be offered the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines where available, and should be offered vaccination at the same time as anyone else in their cohort.

This is a change from earlier years and it is a genuine divergence from other countries. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for example, still strongly recommends COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy. If you are reading US-authored advice about COVID vaccination in pregnancy, it does not describe what the NHS will offer you. That is an eligibility decision about NHS funding, not a new safety finding, and if you want the vaccine outside an eligible cohort you would need to seek it privately.

Vaccines you would normally wait for

Live vaccines are generally deferred until after the birth. That includes:

• BCG (tuberculosis)
• MMR (measles, mumps and rubella)
• Oral typhoid
• Yellow fever

The NHS is careful about how it frames this: there is no evidence that any live vaccine causes birth defects, and the advice to wait is precautionary. If you are travelling to an area where the risk of infection is high, that calculation can change, and a travel clinic can vaccinate you during pregnancy where the risk of the disease outweighs the theoretical risk of the vaccine. Do not simply cancel travel plans without getting that assessment.

How and where to get vaccinated

Whooping cough and RSV are usually given by your midwife at an antenatal appointment, or by your GP surgery. Flu vaccination in pregnancy is available at GP surgeries and at most community pharmacies during the flu season, free of charge. You do not need to pay for any of the three, and you do not need a referral.

If you were not offered a vaccine at the expected appointment, ask. Uptake gaps are usually administrative rather than clinical, and you can request the vaccine directly from your GP practice at any point once you are within the eligible window.

You can have more than one on the same day. Whooping cough and flu are routinely given together, and there is no requirement to space them out. If you have missed the usual window for whooping cough — you are past 32 weeks, say — still ask for it. Later vaccination transfers fewer antibodies to the baby but is not pointless, and the NHS will still offer it.

Where to get help

The NHS is the governing authority for vaccination in pregnancy in the UK, and its vaccination pages carry the current windows. Your midwife can give the whooping cough and RSV vaccines and answer questions about timing. For anything unusual — travel vaccines, immunosuppression, a previous severe reaction — ask your GP or a travel health clinic rather than deciding from general guidance, and check the JCVI statements published on GOV.UK if you want the reasoning behind an eligibility decision.