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...

AlpinePony: Are all pregnant women going to stop driving cars? I'd wager a darned site more pregnant women die in car crashes than of swine flu.

This may be true if all you are concerned with is total numbers, but it doesn't take in to account relative risk.

Being pregnant does not increase your risk of death or injury when driving.

Being pregnant does increase your risk of contracting flu and the severity of the condition.

The vaccine will dramatically reduce your chance of contracting the disease.

It will also dramatically increase the risk of an adverse vaccine event, which without it is zero.

Tangle - I'm so sorry.

The basic assessment has to be whether you are likely to have a life-changing event from the vax or from the disease. It's a difficult decision to make - but I would say more difficult last yaer because the vax was IMO quickly developed and a good proportion of people felt they were the guinea pig for this vax.

Anecdotally my dd had both flu and SF vax last year. She usually has the flu one. She had one of her worst winters ever- her immune system was shot and it's just about recovered now ready for the next round. But she didn't have full-blown swine flu and if she had and been in the situation Tangle was wrt to low BP and o2 it would have killed her.

Adverse vaccine event - from the World Health Organisation's list of 'six commons misconceptions about immunisation:

1. "Vaccines cause many harmful side effects, illnesses, and even death - not to mention possible long-term effects we don't even know about."

Vaccines are actually very safe, despite implications to the contrary in many anti-vaccine publications. Most vaccine adverse events are minor and temporary, such as a sore arm or mild fever. These can often be controlled by taking paracetamol after vaccination.

More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed. As for vaccines causing death, again so few deaths can plausibly be attributed to vaccines that it is hard to assess the risk statistically.

End quote. So risk of serious complication from getting vaccine - very low, if it exists at all.

Risk of serious complication from pregnant woman getting swine flu - real and, to me, significant. Pregnant women were four times more likely to be admitted to hospital than the general population if they caught swine flu last year and were twice as likely to die - link here.

no way would I be injecting myself with anything if I was pregnant!!

what Scarabeetle said.

Like many things pregnancy related women do have such an awful lot of pressure put on them to do the 'right' thing, and their unborn child is often used to emotionally blackmail them into doing things they don't want to.

I am hoping my midwife will accept that I do not think the risk of me getting swine flu/flu is high and won't pressure me.

or maybe I should say I don't think the risk of me dying or my baby dying, because I don't have the vaccine, is high.

I think we all have a different take on the information available, depending on our standpoint,

" 'More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed. As for vaccines causing death, again so few deaths can plausibly be attributed to vaccines that it is hard to assess the risk statistically.'

End quote. So risk of serious complication from getting vaccine - very low, if it exists at all."

I don't take from that quote that the risk hardly exists at all - I read 'low but hard to assess statistically'. And if you're pg or have an underlying condition, both groups on which the vax hasn't been directly tested, then the risk is even harder to assess.

Thousands of pregnant women have had the flu vaccine.

It's hard to assess the risk statistically because there have been so few incidents that could possibly be related, that's what the WHO site said there 'some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed'.

It would not be correct to take from that sentence only 'risk cannot be accurately assessed'.

Nothing is directly tested pregnant women so that doesn't make it dangerous. Caffeine hasn't been directly tested, I'm sure most of us haven't completely cut out tea.

Thousands of pg women have had the flu vaccine - but last year thousands hadn't had the rushed through SF vax some of which included adjuvants that made people nervous.

I'm perfectly aware that drugs/vax aren't tested routinely tested on pregnant women - that's what I'm saying because they aren't tested on those groups some people will be understandably nervous about that. You feel that because something isn't tested it doesn't make it dangerous, fair enough - others feel that because something isn't tested it may not mean it's safe. One idividual's perception of risk is different to another's.

And a comparison with caffeine is silly - it is 'tested' (although not in the scientific sense) on pg women because pregnant women drink it everyday. And not drinking it won't kill you either.

I'm not anti-vax BTW I'm anti the opinion that the risk is the same for everyone.

Jeely,

You are bashing your head against a brick wall. A professor is being called "paternalistic" because he personally thinks someone who avoids the vaccine is foolhardy.

I am sure all females in the field would fully agree with him.

It is 10+ yrs of research and training vs a decision made purely on instinct, not a man vs woman thing.

But, for some reason, scientists are distrusted these days and some always believe in a hidden agenda.

I think people are very misinformed about the flu vaccine.

The flu vaccine has been used for 50 years and yes in that time it's been used on millions of pregnant women it's not new and untested. See my previous link that showed the adverse reactions of over 2 million women between 2000- 2003 this showed somthing of 8 adverse reactions which were mainly sore arms and rashs at the injection site.

The problem with the vaccine last year is that the WHO track the flu strains all through the year before giving reccomending on which will be most prevelant. this information is generally given at somtime in febuary, I believe, for the northern hemisphere giving them 6 months to produce the vaccine.

Swine flu caught everyone of guard last year and the vaccine had to be produced in a shorter time frame.

That's not a problem this year they've had the same amount of time to develop it in the same way as they have done since 1944!

Just pointing out that saying 'shock, terror, it hasn't been tested on pregnant women!' to make it sound like an automatically dangerous thing to do is irresponsible. Nothing is tested on pregnant women. Lots of pregnant women have had the flu vaccine though.

Does anyone have a real reason for not accepting the vaccine other than just not fancying the idea of it? Are the NHS secretly trying to maim or kill any other sectors of the population or just us and our babies?

I think you're putting words into my mouth Jeely. I simply said it not being tested made the risk more difficult to assess. Emotive language isn't helpful.

But people are using emotive reasons to make the decision not to have the vaccine.

I'm not being emotive.

I just don't want it because I do't think the risk to me or my unborn child is high enough for someone to call me foolhardy for deciding not to have it.

that's my real reason for not wanting it.

The risk of a pregnant woman getting flu (which can have very serious results) is significantly higher than the risk of a pregnant woman having a serious adverse reaction to a flu vaccine. Therefore it is foolhardy not to have the vaccine.

Am getting quite frustrated so I think I will give up.

the WHO this shows is a very long document however it includes lots of information including on a long term study of 50 000 pregnant woman given the flu vaccine. It also includes a graph showing the morbidity rate of pregnant woman compared to non pregnant woman over the past century's pandemics including last years. The who recommend better education of women to increase the uptake of the vaccine which they feel pregnant woman should have.

This is what doctors use to make their decisions not the opinion if newspapers who simply want to improve their profits be publishing contreversol stories.

Or are the WHO simple talking crap now with all their information and reserch.

Great, give up then Jeely - because you're making sweeping generalisations and insulting people like me who sweated and cried a great deal over this decision and calling us idiots. We aren't. We simply aren't foolish enough to trust that a vaccine containing God knows what is not going to harm our babies in the long run. Simply put, nobody knows what the long term effects are.

The Govt is prepared to tout vaccines for pregnant women because from a public health standpoint it would be too costly and unsustainable to have hundreds of pregnant women in hospital with flu. The Govt doesn't care if in 10 years time it turns out that anyone who got the jab when pregnant ended up with a baby with autism or whatever. Long term problems like that aren't an issue for the present day Govt.

You are the fool - not me.

Dylthan - your link isn't up. Also point out that there isn't one flu vaccine - there are many. They contain different ingredients and the effects are therefore different. You can't substitute one pandemic for another either.

50 years! 50 years! Not new not untested and not containing god knows what!

It's been very well reserched and is to be given to pregnant woman based on these years reserch.

It's not for the goverment to save money what an absurd view.

whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241500111_eng.pdf

Fascinating - but Pandemrix wasn't around 50 years ago so I don't know why you think this is so relevant.

Governments care plenty about money. It's not an absurd view - you are a little naive, that's all.

There's a diffrence between a brand and a generic drug for example calpol is a brand paracetamol is generic.

Pandermix is a brand but the way the flu vaccine is made is generic so yes it has been around that long.

If money is the case then why is it being pushed on pregnant American women. Surely drug companies would be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of a long hospital stay?

It's the WHO's recommendation not this goverments or are they just after money to?