Flu shots are never an easy sell to the pregnant women Dr. Katharine Taber sees at her Towson obstetrics practice.
These are women who worry about everything they put into their bodies, from tuna fish to coffee to pain relievers. So Taber has to explain how important it is that they get the tried-and-true seasonal flu vaccine, because a serious case of flu could be dangerous to their developing babies.
This year, Taber is working double-time on her salesmanship. Health officials have made pregnant women among the highest-priority groups to get the swine flu vaccine, which is still being tested, when it becomes available next month.
"It's tough," she said. "They're worried about the safety of the vaccine because it hasn't had a ton of testing. ... They're asking if Tylenol is OK and I'm telling them they have to get this new shot. The risk-benefit says the vaccine is safer [than getting the H1N1 virus] - take the vaccine. But they're skeptical."
That skepticism is something public health officials know they will be facing once the new vaccine is approved. Flu vaccination rates are notoriously low. Only about one in three Americans gets the seasonal flu shot, and the rates are even lower among groups at the highest risk for complications from the disease. Only one in five children younger than 2 is vaccinated, and the rate is lower among pregnant women.
Soon, doctors will have to convince expectant mothers and parents of babies and toddlers that even though they might not have gotten flu shots in the past, it is of the utmost importance to do so this year as H1N1 - a new and unpredictable virus - sweeps in with cooler weather.
Amanda Gleason is leery of having her daughter Naomi, who's nearly 2, vaccinated for swine flu because the girl is so young. Gleason thinks she protects her from germs by spending lots of time at their home in Hanover and by keeping her away from play areas at the mall, for example. And from what Gleason has seen, swine flu has been relatively mild. "Why do I want to risk Naomi getting the vaccine if [swine flu] is not as deadly as they're saying?" she said.
Experts have estimated that as many as half of Americans could come down with swine flu, up to 90,000 could die and that the number of seriously ill could overwhelm intensive-care units. In a typical year, seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people in the United States, many of them elderly, and 200,000 are hospitalized. So far, children and pregnant women appear to be disproportionately affected by the new pandemic virus, though cases generally have been mild. More than 550 people in the U.S. have died from the H1N1 virus since it emerged in April.
