babble » blogs » Strollerderby
Strollerderby
Swine flu and h1n1 vaccines are still relevant.
A three-year-old girl in the U.K. was checked into the hospital when, over Christmas, a bad cough turned into a terrible fever. Two days later, Lana Ameen was dead from swine flu.
Ameen’s mother, Gemma, believes her daughter’s general good health is what wound up bringing about her death. Continue reading »
UK authorities encouraging at-risk groups to get vaccinated for H1N1.
Though I love the holidays, yesterday was a welcome day, indeed. For yesterday the kids went back to school. And I don’t know about your household, but ours can barely survive two straight weeks of round-the-clock kiddie time. But this morning I read an article that made me wonder just how excited I’d be right now if I lived in England.
With cases of influenza extremely high, United Kingdom authorities are worried that the same thing will hold true with cases of H1N1, especially now that kids are returning to school. Authorities are bracing for what they fear might be a tremendous spike in the epidemic.
The 25 year old mother had not been vaccinated for the swine flu.
A pregnant mother of four is in the fight for her life. Fallon Devaney, 25, was admitted to the hospital last week after experiencing shortness of breath and flu-like symptoms. She was immediately diagnosed with swine flu and checked into the intensive-care unit, where she was placed into a medically induced coma as doctors work feverishly to save both her life as well as the life of her unborn child.
The Daily Mail reported yesterday that since her arrival, Devaney’s condition has actually worsened. Her doctors fear that she’s contracted pneumonia. Her mother, Linda Fearney, has been told by doctors that her daughter and her unborn grandchild could both die. The 46 year old woman told the Daily Mail, ”It’s getting to the stage we had feared and the baby is taking a lot of her strength. The doctors have said they might need to do something about it to save Fallon. If she can’t fight it because she’s carrying the baby then we have a very hard decision to make.” Continue reading »
Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to swine flu
Not to be a downer, but here’s your friendly reminder that the Happy Holidays Season has an evil twin: flu season. Health experts are urging everyone to get this season’s flu vaccine and, in some parts of the world, they’re once again pushing H1N1 shots.
This year alone, 10 people in the U.K. died from the swine flu, all of them under 65 years old. In Northern Ireland, three pregnant women have been diagnosed with the so-called swine flu already, according to the BBC. Health officials there are urging all pregnant women, regardless of how far along their pregnancies are, to get an H1N1 shot if they didn’t get one last year. Continue reading »
Fear of the flu shot
USA Today‘s Liz Szabo talked to infectious disease and vaccine safety experts about some of the common misconceptions people have about the flu and the vaccine — this in response to a recent Consumer Reports survey that found only 30 percent of people think this year’s flu shot is safe.
Misinformation about flu shots runs rampant, meanwhile influenza kills more people in developed countries than any other vaccine-preventable disease, a Wake Forest pediatrician told Szabo. In the U.S., it sends 200,000 people to the hospital and kills 30,000 a year.
5 Myths about the flu: Continue reading »
One shot, lifetime immunity?
As we know, the flu is a slippery virus. It mutates quickly, and we’re supposed to get a vaccination every year to prepare for what’s out there.
The seasonal flu vaccine is usually a mix of the three strains of the virus that are most likely to hit us in that particular year. But scientists have long been trying to figure out a way to create a universal flu vaccine that would, like the vaccine for measles or mumps, provide decades of protection from the flu virus with just one inoculation.
Sounds pretty great, right? Only one shot for you and your kid. Today, a new study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows for the first time, that this universal flu vaccine might actually be possible. Continue reading »
By the time H1N1 vaccines reached the West Coast, where I live, it was hard to ignore that nagging feeling that, while standing in remarkably long lines last year, I was overreacting. “Was I participating in a nationwide panic?” I thought more than once. After all, I wasn’t also spending hours a week tracking down seasonal flu shots. Just H1N1 — it sounded so serious.
As the so-called “swine flu” pandemic marks its anniversary this month — and the CDC and health experts all over the nation look back on the numbers — one mother still lives with her regret. Jessica Holt had heard all about H1N1, but knew it wasn’t going to happen to her.
Then her son got sent home from school, and the very worst happened. The very worst. Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice.
0