2023-12-30 14:31:48
The influenza vaccination has been strongly recommended for pregnant women for years to protect themselves from serious illnesses. This also applies to Austria. A US study now shows that this immunization also protects newborns and babies in the first six months.
The scientific study was led by Leila Sahni from the pediatric department at Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas) and was recently published in the US journal JAMA Pediatrics published. She and her co-authors examined how effective an influenza vaccination during pregnancy is in protecting babies under six months of age from infections that require hospitalization or emergency room treatment.
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For the study, the scientists used this German medical journal, the data from the New Vaccine Surveillance Network for the influenza waves 2016/2017 to 2019/2020. The analysis included babies under six months of age who were treated in an emergency room or hospitalized for an acute respiratory illness at seven children’s hospitals in the United States.
In total, data from 3,764 newborns were analyzed, 223 with influenza. The mothers of 2,007 children had been vaccinated. The protection rate against infections with influenza viruses among babies was relatively high at around 34 percent. This is due to the transfer of protective antibodies from the expectant mother to the unborn child. Depending on the age group, protection rates of 40 to 80 percent are recorded for those who have been directly vaccinated.
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According to the results of the US study, the influenza vaccination of pregnant women is also a classic example of the prevention of serious illnesses. Babies of immunized mothers were almost 40 percent less likely to be admitted to hospital because of influenza and almost 20 percent less likely to have to be treated in emergency rooms.
“In newborns under three months of age, vaccination effectiveness was 53 percent,” wrote the medical journal. The effect was particularly high at 52 percent in babies born to mothers who were vaccinated during the last trimester of pregnancy. When vaccinated in the first or second trimester of pregnancy, the protective effect was only 17 percent.
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