Excerpt from: Time Magazine (click for full article)
Expectant moms may have one more reason to get a flu shot.
According to the latest research on flu vaccination during pregnancy, following current recommendations for influenza shots may help to lower rates of autism.
In research published in the journal Pediatrics, scientists studied the rates of developmental disorders like autism among nearly 97,000 children born in Denmark
between 1997 and 2003. The children’s mothers answered questions about
infections they might have had during pregnancy — colds, sinus
infections and urinary tract infections, among others. They also
reported whether they’d suffered from the flu or had fevers that lasted
more than seven days before they gave birth.
When the researchers compared the mothers’ answers to the registry of
developmental disorders, they found that moms who fought the flu while
expecting had children with double the risk of being diagnosed with
autism before their third birthday. Mothers who endured flu-based fevers
for seven days or more had triple the likelihood of having kids with
autism, and those mothers also had a 60% greater chance of having a
child diagnosed with developmental difficulties falling into the more
expansive category of autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
In addition, moms who used antibiotics while pregnant had children with
a small increased risk of autism. Infections and antibiotic use can
also contribute to low birth weight babies, another risk factor for
developmental abnormalities; in a 2011 study,
researchers concluded that premature babies who weigh less than 4.5
pounds are five times as likely to be diagnosed with an ASD.
Influenza seemed to be the only infection linked to a higher risk of
autism among these mothers’ children; other common infections such as
colds and sinus infections during pregnancy did not seem to increase
autism among their offspring. While it’s not clear why influenza is so
potentially harmful to early development, experts suspect that the
fevers associated with flu might be largely responsible, since previous
studies show that periods of high fever during pregnancy are associated
with birth defects. So bringing down rising body temperatures while
expecting is a must, they say, to avoid potentially detrimental effects
on a still-growing baby.
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