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Flu shots for pregnant women protect newborns after birth

Thursday, September 18, 2008

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Late term pregnancy flu shots continue to protect newborns after birth, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. This gives reason for more expectant mothers to follow U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and obtain a flu shot during flu season. Only 15% of women in the United States receive the vaccination during pregnancy, although the CDC has advised this preventive treatment for the past 11 years.

The study was conducted in Bangladesh on a group of 340 pregnant women during third trimester and reduced the risk of respiratory illness among the mothers by 36 percent. The benefit to their infants was even greater: 63 percent reduction in influenza incidence and an overall reduction of respiratory illness by 29 percent. The study found 6 confirmed cases of influenza in the vaccinated group compared to 16 cases among the mothers of a control group.

Late term pregnancy flu vaccination represents an important window for preventive treatment because the flu vaccine is not recommended for infants less than 6 months old. Infants under the age of 6 months also run the highest risk of dying from the flu.


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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

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