Does being pregnant affect your ability to combat infection?

[twiglett]

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Yes, it does. I don't remember the exact mechanism, but basically in order to get your body to accept foreign genetic material (the baby & placenta), the placenta (I think it's the placenta) suppresses your entire immune system. This is one reason why pregnant women in the USA are routinely offered flu jabs. All my pregnancies started with stonking bad, never-ending colds.

I think the "What to Expect when you're Expecting" book supports this theory.

This is really interesting, I would have thought it was the other way around, I used to catch colds very often before being pregnant and only got one while I was...

I'm sorry to hear that your feeling so rough Twiglett. But I seem to be the opposite to you.

Before I had my dd I always had a cold right through the winter, any bugs going around you name it I caught it. I suffered quite bad with hay fever in the summer as well.

I got pregnant with dd and never looked back, I was pregnant during the winter and didn't get one single cold or flu bug. During the summer,dd was born in August, my hayfever was very very mild.

Even after dd was born I didn't get colds as often as I used to and my hayfever was never as bad as pre dd days. It was as if my immune system finally kicked in and protected me.This lasted up until dd was about 4 and a half then it all started to go downhill. I went on holiday and got tonsiitis and allergic conjunctivitis and my hayfever that summer was the worst it had been in years.

Now I'm pregnant again, same stage you're at twiglett, and I've not been ill once this winter and I'm hoping that my immune system will kick in again and do a repeat of last time.

The absence of the hayfever is actally a sign that your immune system isn't working as well Linnet - hayfever is a sign of an overactive immune system.
I'm like you twiglett - get every cold possible when pregnant (though not suffering as much as you poor thing)