Pregnant women may be far more at risk from swine flu than thought, according to a survey published on Friday that was carried out in Australia and New Zealand.
An investigation carried out among American women between April and May last year, in the first month of the H1N1 virus' outbreak, suggested pregnant women were four times likelier to develop severe illness requiring hospitalisation compared with non-pregnant counterparts.
But the new paper, published online by the British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com), found in a small sample that the risk of critical illness could be 13 times as much.
The data sweep covered 64 women who were pregnant or had given birth in the previous four weeks and who were admitted to an intensive care unit between June 1 and August 31.
Seven of the women died. Out of 60 births, four babies were stillborn, three died in infancy, 22 were pre-term and 32 needed treatment at a neonatal intensive care unit.
None of the women had been vaccinated against seasonal flu, despite recommendations that pregnant women be immunised.
H1N1 caused at least 16,713 deaths as of March 7, according to a March 12 posting on the World Health Organization website (www.who.int).
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