Study: Most pregnant women skipped flu vaccine last year

Most pregnant women knew the flu could hospitalize or kill them, but just 34 percent got the H1N1 vaccine last year, a study by the Nassau County Department of Health and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System found.

When their doctor recommended it, women were 20 times more likely to get the vaccine, yet doctors recommended the vaccine less than half of the time, the study of pregnant women found.

During the swine flu pandemic last year, public health officials urged pregnant women to get the H1N1 vaccine because they are among those at highest risk of hospitalization and death from any strain of flu. Their unborn babies are also at risk for premature birth.

A pregnant woman was among five swine flu deaths in Nassau County last year - the only one on Long Island. Nassau Health Commissioner Maria Torroella Carney said the study - the only one of its kind in the state - was done to see whether women heeded official advice.

Nassau collaborated with the Krasnoff Quality Management Institute at North Shore-LIJ to survey 1,325 women who had given birth in June-August at three North Shore-LIJ hospitals and Nassau University Medical Center. More than half in the still-unpublished study were from Nassau, 40 percent were from Queens, and 8 percent were from Suffolk.

Pregnant women - perhaps worried about vaccine safety, the study indicates - are among the least likely to get the flu vaccine. In 2008-2009, only 11 percent of pregnant women nationwide took the seasonal flu vaccine, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The year before, 24 percent got it.

But what Nassau's study showed, Carney said, was that women listen to their doctor.

"This is a population that is hard to reach in terms of intervention," she said. "I think the learning point is that they trust their physician to guide them and we [public health officials] need to partner with health care professionals."

The other major finding, said Dr. Yosef Dlugacz, senior vice president at the Krasnoff Institute, was that the more educated the woman, the more likely she was to get the flu shot. But even among those with graduate degrees, less than half got the vaccine - although 95 percent of all women surveyed said they knew the H1N1 virus could hospitalize or kill them. The reason? Fifty-three percent said they were worried about the vaccine's safety.

Dr. Stuart Lustberg, a Huntington obstetrician-gynecologist, said only 10 percent to 15 percent of his patients refused the vaccine. "I am unambiguous," he said, about his explanation of the flu's potential consequences to both the mother and baby. And, he said, while research hasn't found any connection between the mercury-based preservative thimerosal in vaccines and autism or other developmental conditions, he offers only mercury-free vaccines.

Dr. Steven Sherwin, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Garden City, said about 20 percent to 25 percent of his patients refused the vaccine last year, although he offered it at his office.