CDC Advises Pregnant Women to Get Swine Flu Vaccine
Posted by charity_scott | July 30, 2009
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The Centers for Disease Control issued a recommendation that pregnant women be given priority for swine flu vaccination. The recommendation came down in light of new data from the CDC that shows that pregnant women infected by the H1N1 virus were hospitalized at a much higher rate than the general population during the first wave of swine flu.
The study was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, but NPR reports that it may be difficult to convince pregnant women, and their doctors, to vaccinate. Even after the CDC increased its focus on getting pregnant women vaccinated against the seasonal flu, fewer than 15 percent get flu shots.
"There's a real hesitancy on the part of pregnant women to take anything during pregnancy," says Dr. Denise Jamieson, an author of the new CDC study. "A lot of women want to avoid all medications and all exposures."
According to that study, there were 45 deaths reported in the first two months of the outbreak, six of which were pregnant women. That rate is 13 times higher than the number of pregnant woman in the country compared to the total population. Experts fear the rate could increase during the fall and winter, when a higher rate of H1N1 infections are expected.
Dr. John Treanor, a vaccine expert at the University of Rochester, said that his experience with past flu vaccines points to the swine flu vaccine's safety. "I think there is accumulated evidence that the vaccine is safe in pregnancy," he said.
Dr. Iffath Hoskins, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn saw first-hand this spring what the new pandemic virus can do to healthy pregnant women who start out with ordinary flu symptoms. "We've seen them get very sick, very quickly," says Hoskins.
Jamieson said that most pregnant women who get infected only experience mild symptoms like fever and a cough like most of the general population, adding that the CDC doesn't have any additional recommendations for pregnant women to avoid catching swine flu. However, if they do manage to catch the virus, doctors should act quickly, ideally within 48 hours of displaying symptoms.
"The message is don't delay appropriate treatment because she's pregnant," she said.
Resources
The originals study was published at The Lancet.
Additional swine flu information is available through the CDC.
Explore the Livestrong Influenza topic page here.
--By Charity Scott