Health

Pregnant women and a flu vaccine
by Zuzana Zelenakova

Pregnant women these days have one additional reason to worry about their babies and themselves, swine flu. It is well known that future mums are one of the groups that are at extra risk from the virus. US study from July this year showed that if they get the virus complications are more likely and they could end up in a hospital much more easily that other people. In the US several pregnant women has already died of swine flu complications. Vaccination should be a natural solution, however, there is a major problem, great amount of obstetricians simply does not vaccinate. So it is quite difficult for federal health officials to raise the numbers of vaccinated pregnant wom! en. "It's been incredibly frustrating. There's a terrible disconnect between the message that was getting out and, once you decide you want it, how do you get it?" says 30 year old Charla Bason from Washington, D. C., that is expecting her first child. She was asking repeatedly her obstetrician and primary care doctor about vaccine information and after several weeks she still does not really know where to go to get vaccinated. Another problem is that many pregnant women are simply afraid to get a vaccine because they are worried about its safety. One of the reasons might be that the governments have not informed the public sufficiently about potential problems with Tamiflu vaccine. Different polls confirm this idea. "It's obvious from these results and from discussions about this on mumsnet that lots of mums and mums-to-be are questioning whether or not to have the swine flu vaccine or give the vaccine to their children. Some are worried about how well it's been tested, ot! hers about its effectiveness and side-effects," said Carrie Lo! ngton, c o- founder of the website mumsnet.com that published one of the surveys.

related story (sgx15493): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_he_me/us_med_healt...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 1:27 PM