Flu vax benefits unborn

[Mousehound]

Studies of women who had the H1N1 flu shot during pregnancy showed some unusual benefits for their babies.

34% less likely to have a stillbirth,
28% less likely to deliver before 32 weeks, and
19% less likely to give birth to a child with a birth weight for gestational age in the bottom third percentile.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-0...-benefits.html

[Kassy]

That's quite a surprise. Thanks for posting.

Data corrected for smoking, education and income.

Smoking is a very direct cause so good that that's taken out.

Education & income filter for the spread over society so it looks like there's something there to study in detail.

I wouldn't know why it would help. There's another article i read today which is similar but not the same nor directly flu related. Will post it later & add a link here.

[Kassy]

http://thisbluemarble.com/showthread.php?p=355517

Flu and fevers. Mothers with fevers during pregnancy are more likely to have kids with autism and other effects.

Not the same effect as mentioned in the original article but it might be of interest.

Interestingly they report no correlation with flu. This might be because the H1N1 seems to have a low number of severe cases & thus a lower number of cases of fever but that's just my impression.

Also a severe fever resulting in a still birth would be more likely early on. I wonder what the data looks like divided into 3 month cohorts.