Pregnancy- H1N1- Advice-Vaccine

When you're struggling to get pregnant, every headline with the word “infertility” raises a red flag you just can't ignore. The same is true when you're already pregnant and hoping for that healthy baby.Which is why experts say the recent headlines linking both an increased rate of infertility and pregnancy complications to the new H1N1 “swine flu” vaccine can be so devastating to so many.

“Myths and rumors can be harmful – and when they are aimed at a particularly vulnerable group they can be exceptionally harmful ; in this situation, it is vital that we stop, take a breath and look at the facts before we make any decisions, ,” says Niels Lauersen, MD, medical director of GettingPregnantNow.org

In doing so, says Lauersen, we find there is little evidence to link the vaccine to specific problems in either group. That said, he also cautions that “ A lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of safety” and that more testing is probably needed to feel totally secure.

To this end, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the US Centers for Disease Control says that more extensive testing of the vaccine on pregnant women is underway. That's the good news. The bad news: Results are not expected anytime soon.

Still, Schuchat says she's confidant that what we know thus far satisfies her safety concerns.

"The trials are being done to provide additional information on dose and so forth, but I think that if I were pregnant I would not wait for the results of those trials, if there was an injectable vaccine available to me,” she recently a press briefing on the H1N1 vaccine.

One reason for the concern, say experts is that pregnant women who do contract the flu – any type of flu – are six times more likely to develop complications and their death rate is greater as well. Still when making your decision whether or not to vaccine, Lauersen says it's important to note that the risk of getting the flu is no higher during pregnancy.

“If you get it, you are more likely to develop complications such as pneumonia – but being pregnant does not, in and of itself, put you in a high risk group,” he says. The same rule, he says, applies to those currently using fertility treatments or trying to get pregnant naturally.

" There is currently no evidence that fertility medications or treatments can reduce your immunity or make you more susceptible to the flu – so I don't think this is something fertility patients have to be concerned about,” he says.

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