Getting the flu shot during pregnancy could help prevent your newborn from getting sick

Many women wonder whether it’s safe to get the flu shot while pregnant, but a new study suggests that the flu shot will not only protect the mother from getting sick, but could also help protect infants in the months following birth.

Influenza among newborns is surprisingly high – blame it on those tiny, undeveloped immune systems. And since most vaccines have little effect on children younger than six months, researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa wanted to see how effective flu shots received in utero were after birth.

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Looking at just over 2,000 newborns – half whose mothers were immunized with inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV3) and the other half with a placebo – they found that babies eight weeks and younger whose mothers received IIV3 were resistant to the virus by around 85.6 per cent. As the infants grew, this rapidly decreased – down to 25.5 per cent between eight and 16 weeks.

“We and others have previously demonstrated that the administration of IIV3 during pregnancy confers protection against symptomatic influenza infection to the infants of the vaccinated mothers; here we show that the duration of this protection is likely to be limited to the first 8 weeks of age,” said Marta C. Nunes, coauthor of the study.

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While the duration of protection from the flu isn’t very long, it does provide the newborn with eight weeks to build up their immune system until they are able to be immunized again.

What do you think of these findings? Would you get the flu shot during pregnancy? Let us know what you think by tweeting to @YahooStyleCA.