Swine flu and pregnancy

Pregnant women at agreater risk

When it comes to thepossible complications that can occur as a direct consequence of the flu (thisrefers to swine flu and seasonal flu as well) women who are pregnant are at afar greater terminal risk than other members of the population in general. Thoughsuch facts may have a macabre overtone, the greatest number of experts pointout that the greatest number of pregnant women who get affected by H1N1 swineflu will not experience serious complications.

Though they areregarded as a critical group, when it comes to swine flu, neither experts nordoctors are able to give more sustenance to this claim by backing it up withsome sturdy and concrete evidence. The prevailing opinion is that in the periodwhen the fetus is still developing and growing, this pressurizes mother’sbreathing and functioning of the lungs significantly, thus enhancing the riskrate with regards to the development of various secondary infections, such aspneumonia for example. According to the statistics, those unfortunate mothers whowere not able to defeat the ill effects of swine flu lost their lives in thethird trimester. In addition to the above stated explanation, there is yetanother one. Namely, in those months when a woman bears a child, her immune system undergoes a number of changes and some of these changes have thepotential to make a woman in question much more prone to developing infections,flu being one of them also.

Vaccination

As far as vaccinationis concerned, pregnant women do belong to the “critical group” category, which is determined in accordance with theCDC guidelines. As a matter of fact, what the vaccine advisory committee has putforth is that all pregnant women, as well as those persons caring for andliving together with infants, should be among the first to get inoculatedagainst the swine flu.

In case a pregnantwoman is befallen by swine flu, the first thing to be done is for her tostart with the antiviral medication therapy the moment flu is either suspectedor has already manifested through some symptoms. And this is something that is also on the list ofCDC’s top recommendations. Such antiviral medicines as Relenza or Tamiflu aresafe and can be freely taken during pregnancy. In addition, if a woman who is pregnant, up to two weeks after delivery, or has lost her child and hasbeen in contact with a person infected by the flu, she should also beimmediately put on the antiviral medicine therapy.