Pregnant in France - flu vaccine?

[googietheegg]

I'm 13 weeks pregnant and live in France. Everyone on my ante-natal threads is getting the flu jab (in the UK) so I asked my obstetrician if I should get it done here - she said a categorical NO! But I'm confused, as all the NHS advice says that pregnant women should have the jab.

So is anyone here pregnant/recently pregnant in France and had/didn't have the flu jab?

Didn't have it last year.

I wouldn't have in any case so I'm a bad example but it was never recommended to me either.

I'm in Belgium and while I also wasn't offered it here, when I asked my (British) obstetrician if I should have it, he was of the opinion that the risks of having flu whilst pregnant greatly outweigh any known risks of the vaccine (which was the conclusion I had come to, like yourself, from UK advice.) I just went to a GP here and got it no problem, I think France has a similar healthcare set up so you can probably bypass your obstetrician if it's what you want? Incidentally, I had it at 23 weeks and no side effects other than a little bit of a sore arm.

I had the Swine Flu vaccine when pregnant with DD. HCP were all very ambivalent about it but it was being officially recommended.

I think you would have to ask your GP for it too if you wanted it. I asked for it for DD last year and got a lot of but she had been very sick from 6-12 months and I really felt I needed to do everything for her.

My advice is that if you are pregnant in France and under an obstetrician then you need to stop reading the NHS advice, otherwise you are going to get more and more confused.

I'm sure you have already noticed that French women when pregnant eat alsorts of things that the NHS says not to, and the differences don't stop there.

I never had a flu jab when pregant (1 french pregnancy and 2 UK ones).

OK thanks for your advice, although I'm still confused! My DH thinks that we should not 'go above' what the obstetrician said, and as I've never had flu before I think I'll go with the 'local' advice not to have the jab.
frenchfancy I know what you're saying, but it's difficult to ignore UK advice as my English is so much better than my French. And there's loads more ENglish advice available - here you seem to get left on your own really, other than all the blood tests!

Hi googie,
I think I remember you from a previous thread about being pregnant in France. Just wanted to say congratulations! Hope you're enjoying it and haven't had any morning sickness?

Oh thank you so much bunny !! yes it's me again, now at 13 weeks so feeling more positive, but didn't want to add on to my last thread.