Pregnant Moms Need the Flu Vaccine

Want to protect your baby from the flu? Get vaccinated while you’re pregnant, moms.

Infants six months and younger whose mothers were vaccinated while they were pregnant had a 70 percent reduction in laboratory-confirmed flu cases, researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine found. They also found that the infants had an 80 percent reduction in flu-related hospitalizations compared with babies whose moms weren’t immunized.

Health records show, by contrast, that 97 percent of confirmed flu cases occurred in infants whose moms did not get the flu shot while pregnant.

The study’s authors say the numbers are startling — and that the findings show immunizations for pregnant women are a public health priority. The study’s details were published online this week in Pediatrics.

“Babies cannot be immunized during their first six months, so they must rely on others for protection from the flu during that time, ” said the study’s lead author, Julie H. Shakib, an assistant professor of pediatrics, in a press release. “When pregnant women get the flu vaccine, there are clear benefits for their infants.”

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all strongly recommend that pregnant moms get the flu shot as well — “getting a flu shot is the first and most important step in protecting against flu,” says the CDC on its website. “The flu shot given during pregnancy has been shown to protect both the mother and her baby (up to 6 months old) from flu.” (The nasal spray vaccine, however, should not be given to women who are pregnant; it is made with live virus.)

For the new study, researchers examined the health records of more than 245,000 de-identified pregnant women and more than 249,000 infant records for nine flu seasons, from December 2005 through March 2014. The number of births includes twins, triplets, or even larger sets of babies.

Only about 10 percent of the women — 23,383 — reported being vaccinated while pregnant.

Researchers found that the difference between babies who had the flu and who didn’t within the first six months of life was stark. Among 658 infants identified with laboratory-confirmed influenza, 97 percent of the cases occurred in babies whose moms were not immunized.

While pregnant women are not at greater risk for getting the flu, the changes that occur to their bodies during pregnancy make them more likely to be severely affected by the virus. Pregnant women and young infants are among those at the highest risk for dying from flu.