Pregnant Women More Vulnerable To H1N1 Flu

ATLANTA -- When the vaccine for the H1N1 virus -- also known as the swine flu -- becomes available this fall, public health officials may put pregnant women at the front of the line.

That's because a study shows that pregnant women are more likely to get H1N1 and more likely to die from it than the rest of the population.

Maria Siegel's pregnancy has been progressing wonderfully.
She is due to have her second child, a girl, this October.
She is aware of the danger H1N1 presents, and the protection a vaccine would provide.

"It sounds like pregnant women are particularly vulnerable," Siegel said. "So, yeah, I would want that."

Researchers for the British medical journal Lancet concluded that pregnant women are more likely to get H1N1 and more likely to die from it, than the rest of the population.

"We've always known," said president of Atlanta Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates, Dr. H.M. McFarling, "that pregnant women's immune systems are a little bit suppressed during the pregnancy."

Apparently even more so when it comes to H1N1. Of the 45 deaths from H1N1 reported to the CDC from this April to June, six were pregnant women. That's 13 percent.

Doctors have a challenge with pregnant women to begin with. Only about 14 percent of them get the seasonal flu vaccine every year.

At his practice, getting patients to get the flu vaccine is a priority for McFarling. He believes that giving pregnant women first access to the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available is the right thing to do.

"Not only just for our patients," said McFarling. "And not only just for their unborn children and the children they may have. But I think it may make a big difference in the community at large in terms of trying to keep the amount of exposure to this particular virus to the smallest level as possible."

Just as the unborn child benefits from what is passed through the mother's milk, so too would it benefit from the immunity of the mother from the H1N1 vaccine. Once born, infants cannot get a flu vaccine until six months of age.

There's no shortage of things to scary a woman during her pregnancy. Maria Siegel understands this one's for real.