After the death in Spain of two women whose newborn babies have been spared from contracting the influenza A virus, experts reassured by pointing out that pregnant women who get the H1N1 virus did not infect their children in gestation.
As we know, pregnant women are a risk group against influenza A because in their state they are more vulnerable to infections, especially in the last months of pregnancy when the risk of complications increases.
However, the disease is not transmitted vertically, but the transmission is horizontal, exclusively through the respiratory tract.
It is not transmitted either orally or by blood. That is, the virus is installed in the lungs and as in the seasonal flu virus it never reaches the bloodstream so it does not cross the placenta and can affect the fetus as it does in other diseases such as rubella.
About why pregnant women are at greater risk than other groups, doctors explain that it is due to their own "Natural physiological process by which the woman's cellular immunity descends to allow the growth of the embryo or fetus", a decrease that is accentuated during the last months of pregnancy increasing possible complications.
Therefore, while there is no need to create unnecessary alert, prevention is always preferable. It is very important that pregnant women go to the doctor for minimal symptoms such as sudden fever, headache, muscle aches, sore throat, dry cough, and eventually vomiting and diarrhea.
