{"id":13082,"date":"2018-11-18T17:06:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T11:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=13082"},"modified":"2018-11-18T17:06:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T11:36:25","slug":"flu-vaccine-protects-pregnant-women-their-babies-dak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=13082","title":{"rendered":"Flu vaccine protects pregnant women, their babies: DAK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><strong>Srinagar, Nov 18:<\/strong><\/i><i> Urging pregnant women to get vaccinated against flu, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Sunday said flu vaccine protects expectant mothers and their babies from flu.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cPregnant women are more vulnerable when it comes to flu due to the way their immune system, heart and lungs change during pregnancy,\u201d said DAK president and flu expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a communiqu\u00e9.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cPregnant women who get the flu are at higher risk of hospitalization, and even death,\u201d he said.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>Dr Nisar said the risk of premature labor and delivery increases when expectant mothers catch the flu and there is a greater chance of birth defects and even death of a baby in the womb.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cPreventing influenza during pregnancy is an essential element of prenatal care and the most effective strategy for preventing influenza is vaccination,\u201d he said.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>Quoting a 2018 study, Dr Nisar said pregnant women who received flu vaccination were 40% less likely to be hospitalized during pregnancy than pregnant women who weren\u2019t vaccinated.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cFlu vaccine in pregnancy saves infants from dying in the womb,\u201d he said.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cFlu vaccination was associated with 51 percent reduction in stillbirths,\u201d Dr Nisar quoted another study.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>He added mother\u2019s flu shot protects her baby for up to 6 months after he or she is born, which is important because babies younger than 6 months cannot be vaccinated.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>Dr Nisar said flu vaccine is perfectly safe for pregnant women and can be given during any stage of pregnancy. It is the injectable flu vaccine that should be given to pregnant women and not nasal flu vaccine as it is made from live virus that makes it less appropriate during pregnancy.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cDespite life-saving benefits of flu vaccine in pregnancy, majority of the pregnant women in Kashmir are unvaccinated. Last year two expecting mothers lost their lives to flu at SKIMS and both of them had not received the flu vaccine,\u201d he informed.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cThe power of vaccination in pregnancy is a message that should be broadcast far and wide. It is imperative that obstetricians should advocate for influenza immunization and provide flu vaccine to their pregnant patients,\u201d said Dr Nisar.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Srinagar, Nov 18: Urging pregnant women to get vaccinated against flu, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) on Sunday said flu vaccine protects expectant mothers and their babies from flu. \u201cPregnant women are more vulnerable when it comes to flu due to the way their immune system, heart and lungs change during pregnancy,\u201d said DAK president and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}