H1N1 flu shots are safe for pregnant women

NIH researcher assists in study of Norwegian women

2013-01-17

(Press-News.org) Norwegian pregnant women who received a vaccine against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus showed no increased risk of pregnancy loss, while pregnant women who experienced influenza during pregnancy had an increased risk of miscarriages and still births, a study has found. The study suggests that influenza infection may increase the risk of fetal loss.

Scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) published their findings online Jan. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research was conducted following the H1N1 influenza pandemic that took place between spring 2009 and fall 2010. The researchers at the NIH were from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

Norwegian public health officials had urged pregnant women to be vaccinated. However, media reports of pregnancy losses after flu shots caused some expectant mothers to forgo vaccination.

First author Siri Haberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIPH and colleagues initiated the study to help address the question of vaccine safety, by taking advantage of Norway's excellent registries and medical records system. Haberg spent one year of her postdoctoral fellowship in the NIEHS Epidemiology Branch before returning home to Norway during the pandemic.

NIEHS researcher and co-author Allen Wilcox, M.D., Ph.D., said the NIPH researchers combined data from obstetrical visits, birth records, and vaccination registries to investigate whether the influenza vaccination posed a risk to pregnancy. The study found that influenza infection increased the risk of fetal loss by up to twofold. Influenza vaccination did not increase the risk of loss. Instead, the results suggest that vaccination reduces the risk of fetal loss.

"Most important is that vaccinations protect pregnant women against influenza illness, which could be harmful for both the mother and the baby," Wilcox said. "If pregnant women are worried about their fetus, then getting a flu shot is a good thing to do."

Haberg added, "Pregnant women should find it reassuring that we found no harmful effects on the fetus associated with H1N1 vaccination."

### NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit http://www.niehs.nih.gov. Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health ®

Reference: Haberg SE, Trogstad L, Gunnes N, Wilcox AJ, Gjessing HK, Samuelsen SO, Skrondal A, Cappelen I, Engeland A, Aavitsland P, Madsen S, Buajordet I, Furu K, Nafstad P, Vollset SE, Feiring B, Nokleby H, Magnus P, Stoltenberg C. 2013. Risk of fetal death after pandemic influenza infection or vaccination. N Engl J Med; doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1207210 [Online 17 January 2013]. END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study: Antiretroviral therapy for HIV-1 in first 4 months is crucial

2013-01-17

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (Jan. 16, 2013) — Patients who are started on antiretroviral therapy for HIV-1 infection within four months of estimated infection date — and who have higher counts of CD4+ T-cells at the initiation of therapy — demonstrate a stronger recovery of CD4+ T-cell counts than patients in whom therapy is started later, a new study shows. The report, to be published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is co-authored by physicians of UT Medicine San Antonio and the University of California, San Diego and drew data from 468 patients followed ...

Early treatment for HIV slows damage to immune system and reduces risk of transmission

2013-01-17

A 48-week course of antiretroviral medication taken in the early stages of HIV infection slows the damage to the immune system and delays the need for long term treatment, according to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine (1). However, the delay was only marginally longer than the time already spent on treatment. The study, the largest clinical trial ever undertaken looking at treating people with recent HIV infection, also suggests that the treatment lowers the amount of virus in the blood for up to sixty weeks after it is stopped, which potentially ...

Checklists in operating rooms improve performance during crises

2013-01-17

Boston – In an airplane crisis—an engine failure, a fire—pilots pull out a checklist to help with their decision-making. But in an operating room crisis—massive bleeding, a patient's heart stops—surgical teams don't. Given the complexity of judgment and circumstances, standard practice is for teams to use memory alone. In a new study published in the January 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, however, researchers at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health system innovation at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health, have found that ...

In the Eastern US, spring flowers keep pace with warming climate

2013-01-17

MADISON – Using the meticulous phenological records of two iconic American naturalists, Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, scientists have demonstrated that native plants in the eastern United States are flowering as much as a month earlier in response to a warming climate. The new study is important because it gives scientists a peek inside the black box of ecological change in response to a warming world. In addition, the work may also help predict effects on important agricultural crops, which depend on flowering to produce fruit. The new study was published online ...

Popping the question is his job

2013-01-17

Would women rather "pop the question?" Apparently not. With marriage proposals in the air around the new year, researchers at UC Santa Cruz report that both women and men tend to hold traditional views when it comes to marriage proposals. Young adults were asked about their personal preferences for marriage traditions. Overwhelmingly, both men and women said they would want the man in a relationship to propose marriage. A substantial majority of women also responded that they would want to take their husband's last name. In fact, not one of 136 men surveyed believed ...

Marginal lands are prime fuel source for alternative energy

2013-01-17

Marginal lands – those unsuited for food crops – can serve as prime real estate for meeting the nation's alternative energy production goals. In the current issue of Nature, a team of researchers led by Michigan State University shows that marginal lands represent a huge untapped resource to grow mixed species cellulosic biomass, plants grown specifically for fuel production, which could annually produce up to 5.5 billion gallons of ethanol in the Midwest alone. "Understanding the environmental impact of widespread biofuel production is a major unanswered question ...

Scanning the brain: Scientists examine the impact of fMRI over the past 20 years

2013-01-17

Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest scientific quests of all time, but the available methods have been very limited until recently. The development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) — a tool used to gauge real-time brain activity by measuring changes in blood flow — opened up an exciting new landscape for exploration. Now, twenty years after the first fMRI study was published, a group of distinguished psychological scientists reflect on the contributions fMRI has made to our understanding of human thought. Their reflections are published ...

Immunology research sheds new light on cell function, response

2013-01-17

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- A Kansas State University-led study has uncovered new information that helps scientists better understand the complex workings of cells in the innate immune system. The findings may also lead to new avenues in disease control and prevention. Philip Hardwidge, associate professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, was the study's principal investigator. He and colleagues looked at the relationship between a bacterial protein and the innate immune system -- a system of defensive cells that responds rapidly to an infection in a nonspecific manner. Among ...

NASA's Webb telescope team completes optical milestone

2013-01-17

GREENBELT, Md. -- Engineers working on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope met another milestone recently with they completed performance testing on the observatory's aft-optics subsystem at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp's facilities in Boulder, Colo. Ball is the principal subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for the optical technology and lightweight mirror system. "Completing Aft Optics System performance testing is significant because it means all of the telescope's mirror systems are ready for integration and testing," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element ...

NASA sees 1 area of strength in Tropical Storm Emang

2013-01-17

Tropical Storm Emang continues to move through open waters in the Southern Indian Ocean and NASA's TRMM satellite noticed one area of heavy rainfall near the center. On Jan. 16 at 0702 UTC (2:02 a.m. EST) NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed over Emang, and captured rainfall rates. TRMM identified that moderate rain was falling throughout most of the tropical cyclone, and heavy rainfall was occurring near the storm's center. TRMM estimated the heavy rain falling at a rate of 2 inches (50 mm) per hour. On Jan. 16 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST), ...

H1N1 flu shots are safe for pregnant women

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: