TimesOnline has just published an article on the NEW swine flu vaccine - and recommends that pregnant women ask for this in addition to last year's if they had it.

[JosephineClaire]

Has anyone else heard this?

I had a swine flu vaccine at about 10 weeks - I'm now wondering if I need another at 34 weeks...

The thing that I don't understand (and I am pro vaccine) is that in my last pregnancy I had to beg for the flu vaccine - I have very mild asthma (too mild to get it automatically) and I work in a school where infections spread like wildfire. I ended up paying.

So why the change? If it wasn't deemed necessary last time (and the risks of flu were surely the same...) why the change this time (seeing as the pandemic is officially over and the risks of catching any type of flu is surely the same - within reason - year in and year out).

Why do they offer this in winter particularly?
Sorry if a silly question but is it a germ based thing and if so then can't it be passed at other times of the year?

You can get flu any time of year but your more likely to get it in winter because:

1. People are inside more often in the winter than the summer months. So your more likely to come into contact with somebody with flu and lots of people in a small space give it chance to spread to lots of people.

1. Along the same lines the children are in school and any one with a school age child will know that children aren't shy in sharing their germs.

1. The air is drier inside due to using heating this makes it easier for the flu virus to survive.

That's a good question...

It looks from NHS website that this is the first year it's been offered to all pg women as standard? Was referred to this by MW:

www.nhs.uk/conditions/flu-jab/pages/whyitshouldbedone.aspx

I suppose there could be a number of reasons- stronger strain? Better knowledge of adverse effects of flu..?

"People are inside more often in the winter than the summer months. So your more likely to come into contact with somebody with flu"

really? Surely there is more risk from being out and about mixing with more people?

I know a woman last year who had the vaccination and in her third trimester and then didn't feel the baby move for three days, very scary. It was alright in the end but obviously had an impact on child, this worries me and it worries me that there is no way that they can know its safe as they obviously can't test on pg women.

I am strongly considering having it as teach in a London school but still very worried. Not had any advice from medical profession directly to have it though.

brockleyd - movements in the 3rd trimester are reduced anyway, so it's possible that she wasn't feeling movements as a result of being in the 3rd trimester, not as a result of the vaccine IYSWIM. Still scary for her though.

Sorry I should re-phrase that as close contact with people. Do you not not notice that people have more coughs/ sneezes / stomach bugs come the winter months? This is the reason.

Whoever was asking about effects on the unborn baby of you having flu when pregnant - premature labour can result is the obvious one - high fevers can cause you to go into labour and the flu will reduce your ability to breathe easily cutting down on the oxygen to the baby.

Also a very real risk of flu is that it can lead to pnumonia (sp?) which can be fatal to the mother let alone what it would do to the baby.

but why do they have more coughs/sneezes/bugs in winter months? I can't understand why there is closer contact with people in winter. I still go to the same job I go to in the summer, I see the same people in winter. I wouldn't say I have any closer contact with people in winter than I do in summer. If you see what I mean.

We all know that cold doesn't cause colds.

even this is just full of 'probably' and 'may be'...

Another explanation I have found online is:

"cold weather dries out or damages our respiratory system, and skin, allowing it to be more susceptible to infections. In this weakened state, it just allows much more outside influence such as "cold" or "flu" or whatever else is floating around."

what difference does it make of they offer the jab in winter or summer. They do it yearly, before the flu season starts. Makes sense to me. Why risk getting something that is proven to hurt pregnant women and unborn children (and killed some last winter) when you can have a jab that has not caused anything. And many pregnant women had the jab last year. I had the jab, non pregnant and felt a bit off colour for 24hours with a numb arm like you get with a blood test sometimes. Better than getting the flu, as true flu is a dreadful ilness that makes you feel like your dying.

In tropical contries. The flu season runs at the same time as the raining season. Again this is because people tend to be inside more. I never said it had anything to do with the cold.

While you do the same things in the winter months not everyone does. Some people may decide to go to a shopping centre with their friends rather than going to a outdoor Market if it's pouring with rain, some couples may decide to go to a resturant rather than going for a nice walk if it's blizzarding outside, you may also decide to take the kids to a soft play area instead of a park if it's freezing and the ground is icy. All these places are ideal places to spread germs it just takes one ill person.

Also you shouldn't underestimate the schools going back in august/ September time kids really are terrible for bringing home germs which in turn get taken into the workplace by their parents.

It's not live but it's not a bowl of bran.

I wouldn't have it while pregnant. Not on your nelly.

Doesn't it contain mercury? And it either contains squalene as an adjuvant or you get the adjuvant free one which would be less effective. No one has any idea if it affects foetuses. Even if, four years down the line, parents are having their children statemented because of developmental difficulties, no one will make the connection.

Sorry duelingfanjo that was a long post. You wrote two in the time it took me to write one I am terrible slow at this posting business.

That's why it's documented in your medical notes appletrees including the batch numbers of the vaccine given so as connections can be made. Mercury has been used in vaccines since the 1930's. It's hardly a new idea.

I was pregnant recently (sadly miscarried but that's another story). The letter from my GP offering the Swine Flu jab said that there are more people in hospital now with it than there were at the 'peak' of the epidemic (if that's what it was) last year.

This may be the case just in my local area but just because the press aren't reporting it much at the moment, doesn't mean the risk has gone away.

Flu doesn't go away in the summer it just isn't as prevalent in this country.

The whole thing about swine flu is that it's going to keep going because there's lots of people with no immunity and it's quite a successful disease. Doesn't kill most people and they are well enough initially to wander round infecting others. In evolutionary terms, flu viruses are smarter than us mere humans.

I've been offered the flu jab again this year - last year I had the SF jab but not the flu jab (I'm not pregnant btw). I'd had clinically confirmed SF and was till offered the jab. And had it too - because I knew how bad the flu was and hoped to be innoculated against the many variants. Turns out that doesn't seem to have been the case (or at least the protection isn't that long lasting).

Your arm will hurt and you'll probably feel ropey for a few days. This is nothing compared to the disease. I'd have it again - definitely.

Well that's reassuring -- don't worry in five years time we'll check back with the batch number if your child has something wrong. It's hardly going to make things better is it? And there certainly won't be any compensation.

Dylthan no connection will ever be made.

There was a thread earlier about a baby who came out in a rash after a jab. The nurse said : oh that's a heat rash, nothing to do with the vaccination. That was straight afterwards. She had no idea at all if it was heat rash or not. It was and is a knee jerk reaction. It's not the jab, it's not the jab.

So often it's just denial, or "coincidence", or hysteria -- yeah right. There's no compensation for under two's at the time of vax anyway.

So, not only is it too late for your child, no one else will learn about the effects either.

You are really fantasising if you think some dyslexia diagnosis in 2015 if going to be connected with a swine flu jab next week -- and either published as an adverse reaction or accepted as a basis for compensation. It ain't happening.

Plain fact is, they don't know now and they'll never know.

Like I said thiomersal has been used since the 1930's we don't have to wait 5 years to know we already do. Thalidomide wad mentioned in another thread you don't see hcp saying really all your children had birth defects and you all took the same drug well it can't possible be related. A drug won't be given to a pregnant women if they don't have a pretty good idea that it's safe.

For example if a pregnant women did get flu she wouldn't be given tamiflu because it's not thought to be safe she'd be given relenza instead.

Your right that you won't ever be told it's 100 percent safe but then you won't ever be told that about paracetamol either.

OK - so there is no research into the long term effects of vaccines given to pregnant women. So what do we know?

If you have the vaccine:

• you are a lot less likely to catch one of the flu variants in the vaccine
• if you catch it its likely to be milder
• you may develop symptoms in response to the jab
• effect on baby unknown, but no ill effects reported (although that doesn't mean they don't exist)

If you don't have the vaccine:

• you are more likely to catch flu and have worse symptoms
• you may develop complications (becomes more likely as your pregnancy progresses as your lung function is compromised by the growing baby)
• effect on baby reported to include miscarriage and stillbirth.

For me the choice would have been a lot easier if the flu vaccine was more reliable - I'd have been happier taking the risk of having the vaccine whilst pregnant if I was confident it was going to protect me from flu.