You know this If you had flu when pg your child may get leukaemia story? How true is it?

[scampadoodle]

I know this came out a few weeks ago, when the powers that be announced that pregnant women would get the flu jab but I didn't follow it up. The thing is, I had flu (or something like it) when I was 4 months pg with DS2 - he's now 2.6 yo.
Does anyone know the science behind this? I'm now completely paranoid...

[Blu]

WEll the BBC report here suggests that the link is very very tenous. Unproven, in fact. It sounds to me like the sort of thing that would have MartianBishop (if she was here - and how we wish she was able to be) quoting her wisdom about there being no proof of cause just because two matching facts are true.

That study does sound dosgy. Mothers were asked if they suffered flu...not that thier medical records were checked, or that they were monitired. And just because you had flu and your child developed leukaemia wouldn't mean that flu was the cause of the leaukaemia. It might mean all sorts of variations on the conclusions that could be drawn.

It does make sense that flu is more serious for pg women, pg women's systems are already working at full stretch! Anyway, you didn't die as a result of catching flu when you were pg, and if i were you i would try not to not worry for one second about the unproven slight leukaemia link.

[scampadoodle]

Phew! I was hoping it was something like that, to be honest. There are so many dodgy conclusions drawn from bad research (do you ever read the Bad Science column in the Guardian?) & of course the Daily Mail just leapt on it... I felt shocking when I was ill - barely got out of bed for 4 days - but that was probably because I couldn't take any heavy-duty meds. I think it was the fact that the DoH had actually backed it that worried me.

[scampadoodle]

..& having now read that BBC report, the DoH haven't even backed it, & it does sound VERY tenuous.
Bloody Daily Mail!!! I hate the f*ers...

[frances5]

Thankfully childhood leukemia is extremely rare. I went to a lecture at the at the national radiologocial protection board about 7 seven years ago and I think it is about 1 in 100000 children who are unlucky enough to get leukemia on average. There are areas of the country where this figure is slightly higher. For example if there is a large movement of people from rural areas to a new town like when large nuclear reactors were built then the number of cases of leukemia increase slightly. It is hard to tell if cases of leukemia near sellafield when it was built were caused by population mixing or radiation. It is really hard to do any meaningful statisics with such a small number of children getting leukemia. If 5 children in 100,000 get leukemia its 500% increase in the cases, but still a small number for doing statiscial analysis.

In the same way I think it would be really hard to prove whether flu in pregnancy caused leukemia. There are all kinds of theories, like if a child grows up in an exceptionally clean house their immune system doesnt develop properly.

If someone is unlucky enough for their child to get leukemia I dont think it is worth them feeling guilty. Its just extremely bad luck.