Swine flu can be more serious in pregnancy
Pregnant women are 13 times more likely to be admitted with a serious illness after contracting swine flu than non-pregnant women. The results have come from a study of pregnant women in Australia and New Zealand, which revealed that 11% of the mothers and 12 % of the babies died from the complications.
However, the study only looked at a small group (209) of women who were over 20 weeks pregnant, and more research is needed.
In the UK, pregnant women are urged to have the swine flu vaccine, following warnings by the Department of Health that they are more at risk of developing health complications. Many pregnant women are undecided, though, whether to have the vaccine.
There have been 15 deaths in the UK of pregnant women who had swine flu.
Football fans travelling to South Africa for the World Cup this summer are being warned to get vaccinated as the flu season is shortly about to start in the Southern Hemisphere. If you are pregnant and your partner or friend has a World Cup ticket, you may want to talk to your GP or midwife for further advice.
