Been bed bound with flu - haven’t had flu jab yet but plan to. Will I harm baby?

[Bella0831]

Hi,

Im 11 weeks pregnant with baby 2 (12 week scan next week) and overnight I’ve come down feeling absolutely awful. A horrendous cough, cold, fever, feeling so tired and achey. I always planned to have flu jab (I had it with baby 1) but hadn’t had it yet. Feeling incredibly anxious over scan next week and now I’m feeling so stupid for not having it sooner and am reading the NHS flu jab page and the dangers of flu in pregnancy - have I harmed my baby?

There isn't much you can do about it now, other than focus on the fact that most women who have flu in pregnancy have no complications at all. Especially if its after the first trimester

As you are in the second trimester, the risks to the baby have gone down.

Running a fever is not great in pregnancy, so keep your temperature down (non-pharmaceutical means such as cool sponging, paracetamol if that's not enough)

If your symptoms get worse, ring your MW for advice.

As it may also be covid, you really need to rest. A lot.

I had flu at exactly the point you're at now. My baby's 6 months old and seems fine :-). All you can do is keep your temperature down and rest as much as you can so that you recover faster.

There's no way to know if it will have any effect yet, but the chances are very very low. Either way, you have not in any way harmed your baby, you didn't get sick on purpose.

It's the fever that has the most potential to cause harm, so try to keep that down and take in lots of fluids so you don't get dehydrated.

I recently had a bug and had a fever for a couple of days and I just didn't put the heating on to try to keep myself cool, drank lots of water, took aspirin and rested up completely. Didn't take a covid test but could have been that, or could have just been a random virus.

Had the anatomy scan yesterday and everything was fine, so no harm caused.

You can't lock yourself away in a vat of steriliser during pregnancy, and with it being the season and with pregnancy lowering our immune systems, a lot of pregnant women get sick at some point and it's usually perfectly fine.

You can contact your midwife to let them know you have a fever and they can give you advice and reassurance.

I think the main risk is having a high temperature in pregnancy. You can take paracetamol to lower your temperature, even during pregnancy, but you may want to check with a medical professional.

I had Covid during pregnancy, with a slight fever, and my DC is absolutely fine. 💐

I wouldn't be worried about the actual flu virus itself but you need to manage any fever . If your worried I'd contact your GP but keeping your temp down and keeping hydrated would be important

No you won't have harmed your baby. I was hospitalised for a week in 3rd tri with flu and baby was absolutely fine.

Pregnancy lowers your immune system (stops your body attacking the baby) as you've found out the hard way it makes you more susceptible to flu (and other viruses) and makes it harder for you to fight things off.