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CDC Reports 28 Deaths of Pregnant Women from H1N1

Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported to FOXNews.com that approximately 700 caes of 2009 H1N1 have been reported in pregnant women since late April or early May.  Tom Skinner, spokesman for the CDC stated, “There have been about 100 pregnant women admitted to intensive care units and there have been 28 pregnant women who have died from 2009 H1N1.”

Pregnant women have a greater chance of serious health problems if they get the flu, and they are more likely to be admitted to a hospital or die than other patients.  Getting a flu shot can protect both the pregnant woman and her baby.  Pregnant women who have had a flu shot get sick less often than women who did not get a flu shot.  The same applies to their unborn children.

Dr. Anne Schuchat is Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, and she is understandably upset concerning this information.  Dr. Schuchat urges pregnant women to get both the seasonal flu and the H1N1 vaccine.  She further stated, “It’s safe and effective and we think it’s important to get this (H1N1) vaccine as soon as it’s available.”

Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies.  The 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine is being manufactured at the same places where the seasonal flu vaccine is made.  Millions of pregnant women have had flu vaccines in recent years.

Nasal Mist Vaccine NOT approved for Pregnant Women

There are daily reports concerning the local availability of flu shots and nasal spray vaccines.  Pregnant women should get the flu shot given with a needle.  The nasal spray vaccine is NOT approved for pregnant women. Nasal spray flu vaccine should only be given to healthy people ages 2-49 who are not pregnant.  It is safe for women to get the nasal spray vaccine after they deliver, even if they are nursing.

For more information, talk to your doctor.  You may also visit http://www.flu.gov or http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/pregnancy/ to learn more.

         

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Swine Flu drug Tamiflu urged for Pregnant Women

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) said on Tuesday that because a test result for the new H1N1, “Swine Flu” flu can take days, Tamiflu should be given to any pregnant patient with flu symptoms combines with likely contact with someone else with Swine Flu.

Pregnant women who get swine flu are at such high risk of complications like dehydration, pneumonia and premature labor that they should be treated immediately with the drug Tamiflu, despite not being recommended in pregnancy.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, a C.D.C. medical officer said: “If I’m thinking influenza — the classic symptoms, febrile, aching all over, came on all of a sudden — and this flu is in the community, and I’d otherwise give the patient Tamiflu if she wasn’t pregnant, we’re saying, ‘Don’t delay because she’s pregnant,’”

“At that point, the benefit of giving Tamiflu outweighs the risk.”

Tamiflu maker Roche say it’s not normally recommended for use by pregnant women because the effects on the unborn child are an unknown.

Dr. Jamieson, an obstetrician, said most medicines had insufficient safety data for pregnancy “because you don’t do clinical trials in pregnant women.” But she added, “Tamiflu and Relenza are fairly safe in pregnancy.”

Tamiflu and Relenza are in the same class of drugs. But Tamiflu is a pill and liquid, while Relenza is a powder that must be inhaled, so it is prescribed much less often.

The C.D.C. and the World Health Organization said case histories in Mexico and the United States suggested that pregnancy was emerging as a risk factor rivaling asthma, diabetes, immunosuppression and cardiovascular disease.

One of the three deaths in the United States involved a pregnant Texas woman who was on no medication other than prenatal vitamins, the disease centers said. The agency knows of 20 confirmed or probable swine flu infections in pregnant Americans, and “a few have had severe complications,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the interim deputy director for public health.

American doctors are often reluctant to prescribe flu drugs for pregnant women unless they develop severe symptoms like pneumonia. Pregnant women are often reluctant to take medication. A pregnant woman is at higher risk from flu because hormonal changes depress the immune system to protect the fetus.

Details about the death of the pregnant woman in Texas emerged Friday in the disease centers’ weekly morbidity and mortality report. Dr. Jamieson said the woman had mild asthma and psoriasis, but was relatively healthy. The woman has been widely identified as Judy Trunnell, 33.

Mrs. Trunnell was eight months pregnant when she entered the hospital with pneumonia on April 19, five days after flu symptoms began and she had been found flu-positive in a doctor’s office test. Her baby was delivered by Caesarean section and is healthy. She developed acute respiratory distress on April 21 and needed mechanical ventilation. She did not get Tamiflu until April 28. She died May 4.

It is becoming clear that the epidemic in the United States will mirror the epidemic in Mexico, and similar rates of severe illness should be expected. The outbreak across Europe is still spreading slowly because the Europeans aggressively treat every suspected mild case with Tamiflu, health officials said.

The United States now has more than 3,000 confirmed cases — two-thirds in people younger than 18 — but only 116 hospitalizations. But officials note that hospitalizations take slightly longer to appear in statistics and deaths take much longer.