Pregnant Woman Dies of A/H1N1 in Tampa - Total in FL 64

[JimO]

Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/pregnan...orough/1029774

Pregnant woman dies of swine flu in Hillsborough
By Letitia Stein, Times staff writer
Posted: Aug 21, 2009 05:10 PM

TAMPA ? A 22-year-old pregnant woman died Thursday after becoming ill with swine flu, according to the Hillsborough County Health Department.

Her baby was delivered and is under the care of physicians at a local hospital, health department spokesman Steve Huard said.

National health experts are concerned that pregnant woman have been more likely to be hospitalized, and even to die, over complications from this virus, also called H1N1. Pregnant women are a high-priority group to receive the vaccine when it become available in the fall.

Huard said the woman who died Thursday did not have other underlying medical conditions that would increase her vulnerability to swine flu.

The health department did not release additional information about what is believed to be the region's first swine-flu-related death of a pregnant woman. It is the sixth confirmed death linked to the virus in Hillsborough.

To date, Florida has 59 deaths involving laboratory confirmed H1N1 swine flu.

[Pathfinder]

Re: Pregnant Woman Dies of A/H1N1 in Tampa - Total in FL 64

Baby is delivered as swine flu kills pregnant mom

Saturday, August 22, 2009


TAMPA ? A 22-year-old pregnant woman died Thursday after becoming ill with swine flu, according to the Hillsborough County Health Department.

The baby was delivered and is at a local hospital, said Health Department spokesman Steve Huard. He did not release further details of the case, citing federal patient confidentiality laws.

National health experts say pregnant women are more vulnerable than most people to severe complications from the swine flu virus, formally know as H1N1, which emerged in the spring. A higher proportion of pregnant flu victims have been hospitalized, some of whom have died, preliminary studies indicate.

Pregnant women recently were declared a high-priority group to receive the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available in the fall.

The woman who died Thursday did not appear to have other underlying medical conditions that would increase her vulnerability to swine flu, Huard said.

The case appears to mark the first swine-flu-related death of a pregnant woman in the region. It is the sixth confirmed death in Hillsborough linked to the virus.

Florida has had 59 deaths involving laboratory confirmed H1N1, according to the latest figures released Wednesday. A South Florida infant died in July after being delivered prematurely while her mother, suffering from swine flu, was in a medically induced coma. The mother survived.

Changes in women's bodies during pregnancy make it harder for them to shake off both seasonal flu and the swine flu virus, which has become a global pandemic.

As pregnancy advances into the second and third trimesters, women's lung capacity decreases, making it tougher to tolerate a respiratory infection like influenza.

Pregnancy also affects the immune system, making it more difficult for a woman to fight the virus.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/baby-is-delivered-as-swine-flu-kills-pregnant-mom/1029879

[Thornton]

Re: Pregnant Woman Dies of A/H1N1 in Tampa - Total in FL 64

Changes in women's bodies during pregnancy make it harder for them to shake off both seasonal flu and the swine flu virus, which has become a global pandemic.

As pregnancy advances into the second and third trimesters, women's lung capacity decreases, making it tougher to tolerate a respiratory infection like influenza.

Pregnancy also affects the immune system, making it more difficult for a woman to fight the virus.

Please forgive the editorializing but this type of parroted conjecture has to be challenged. Despite months of efforts to find data or reports of similar morbidity in healthy pregnant women for seasonal flu, I can find no systematic medical reports, no medical case reports and no news reports of this happening prior to April 2009. I have challenged this type of conjecture before and no clinical cases have been presented with seasonal flu and healthy pregnancy death. It is not a matter of immunization as pregnant women have less than 10 % vaccination rates for seasonal flu.
It is time stop the conjecture. I will continue to challenge the origins of these reports to link to real cases or start looking for something specific with this H1N1 virus and pregnancy.
Now months into this pandemic we continue to see a false sense of knowledge associated with continued deaths of healthy pregnant women.
Thornton

[Thornton]

Re: Pregnant Woman Dies of A/H1N1 in Tampa - Total in FL 64

Continuation from Post 3 in response to post 2.
If seasonal influenza afflicted pregnant women the same way as H1N1, and since 13% of H1N1 deaths are pregnant women, what would be the proportionate number of deaths each of the previous 5 years from seasonal flu? Even if it were just 1% of deaths from the widely quoted 36,000 deaths per year, wouldn't we have noticed 360 pregnant women dying from flu?
We need more critical examination on why healthy pregnant women are dying from H1N1 influenza.