Sweden Researchers: 'Swine Influenza' Vaccine Safe For Pregnant Women

Pregnant moms who got an immunization against the H1N1 virus in the period of first three months of pregnancy are not likely to bear higher perils of birth deficiencies, as of a research performed by Swedish researchers. The research was headed by Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, a doctor from the Department of Medical Epidemiology, Karolinska Institute at Stockholm, Sweden.

For the research, Ludvigsson's team examined the peril of birth deficiencies in 40,983 kids of moms who were given the H1N1 vaccine, Pandemrix, while pregnant. Out of 40,983 kids who participated in the research, 7,502 kids were laid bare to Pandemrix during the initial eight weeks of pregnancy, and 14,385 of the kids were exposed in their first 8 weeks. The researchers then compared the exposed children to unexposed kids, most of them brothers or sisters.

Based on the findings, birth defects was detected in 2,037 (4.97 percent) exposed kids and 9,443 (4.78 percent) unexposed kids. After comparing the findings of both exposed and unexposed kids, the researchers did not find trivial risk differences.

"Results for most of the specific malformations also were not statistically significant, although some estimates were imprecise," the researchers explained via Medscape. However, researchers were not able to fully analyze the relation between the H1N1 vaccine and any certain kind of congenital malformation.

Although it is certainly good news, further research still needs to be carried out to completely know the effects of the H1N1 pandemic flu vaccine during pregnancy. Overall the findings show that vaccination against H1N1 flu during pregnancy did NOT seem to be associated to overall birth defects in babies, though risk advances for certain malformations could not be identified completely.

Examining risks for vaccines given during the first eight weeks of pregnancy is really important as this is when the early organ development transpires to agents that could cause congenital malfunction, Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist in New York City, explained in a report via WebMD.