SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — We are gearing up for cold and flu season. But right now, new parents need to be aware of another virus… RSV. That’s short for respiratory syncytial virus. Almost all children will get RSV during their first two years, but each year up to 80,000 children are hospitalized due to it. Now, a new FDA approved vaccine can protect your baby — even before the little one is born.
If hiccups are the only battle baby Harper faces, her mom Kristin Gelegotis will count herself lucky. Even before birth, Kristin did everything she could to give Harper the best start, including getting the RSV vaccine.
“I trusted it a hundred percent,” she told Ivanhoe.
The peak season for RSV starts right now and runs through January. The RSV vaccine for pregnant women helps to protect the baby — even before birth.
“The way the pregnancy vaccine works is the vaccine causes the mom to make antibodies and those antibodies cross the placenta, and then the baby is born with those antibodies ready to protect them against the virus,” explained Lauren Theilen, M.D. who specializes in Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of Utah.
She said the best time for moms-to-be to get the vaccine is during their third trimester, between 32 and 36 weeks of pregnancy. The most common risks — soreness at the injection site, fatigue, muscle pain and nausea.
“We have to consider what the harms of not being vaccinated are,” Dr. Theilen stated.
RSV symptoms can cause trouble breathing, coughing, poor feeding, lethargy, irritability — it can turn into pneumonia and can cause asthma during childhood. Dr. Theilen believes the vaccine is a crucial step in protecting newborns.
“As a mom you just want to give anything the best for your baby,” said Kristin.
And now she knows she did everything she could to give Harper a healthy start.
There was concern during a clinical trial with another RSV vaccine that it may cause preterm births, but the vaccine that is FDA approved in the U.S. does not carry the same risk. There is one other FDA approved vaccine recommended for pregnant mothers. That one protects their baby from whooping cough.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Matt Goldschmidt, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
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Source:
https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/infants-young-children/index.html
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
| Nayeli Hernandez
Spanish-Language Communications Specialist for University of Utah Health |
Julie Kiefer
Associate Director of Science Communications for University of Utah Health |
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