UniSA research explains why the flu is so bad in pregnancy
Pregnant women beware: New research suggests the flu causes a “vascular storm” that’s bad for mums and bubs. Vaccination can prevent infection but we also need treatments to prevent long-term complications.
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Understanding why catching the flu can be so devastating for pregnant women and their babies will lead to new treatments that prevent life-threatening complications, say UniSA researchers.
UniSA Professor Doug Brooks says the “mind-blowing” discovery overturns the widely accepted view that pregnant women suffer more from influenza because a suppressed immune system made it harder to fight infections.
Experiments in mice, which are yet to be replicated in humans, show just the opposite: the immune system over reacts, causing a “vascular storm” that enables the virus to spread far and wide into and through the blood vessels to tissues and organs including the heart.
Inflammation of the blood vessels limits blood flow, restricting oxygen and nutrient supply, which causes damage that has severe long- term health implications for both the mother and the foetus.
“What this research means is we potentially need to go to increased levels of effort to make sure women are not exposed to influenza during pregnancy, as it can have these huge long-term, immediate and potential side effects or direct effects on the health of the mother and foetus,” he said.
“Vaccines are a good preventative measure but they aren’t a solution like a therapeutic, we need both otherwise everyone who is exposed to the flu during pregnancy is at risk of serious and life-threatening complications.”
The international study led by RMIT University and published today in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences also revealed a new connection to pre-eclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy complication characterised by high blood pressure.
One of the same proteins that is elevated in pre-eclampsia is also significantly elevated with flu.
It could mean that drugs targeting vascular inflammation could potentially be repurposed in future to target flu infection in pregnancy.
There are also implications for the treatment of a wide range of infections caused by similar viruses.
“The process that we have discovered is potentially happening with a whole range of other devastating RNA viruses, including COVID-19 in the current coronavirus pandemic, HIV (AIDS), Dengue and Ross River viruses, hepatitis C, Ebola, polio and measles,” Prof Brooks said.
“The potential impact of our findings is enormous as we have worked out how viruses attack the immune system to cause severe disease, with this process being much worse in pregnancy.”
He says funding is urgently needed to take the research to the next stage, to develop a potential treatment for all RNA viruses that targets a specific point in the pathological process.
Nicole Van Den Brink, 32 of South Plympton is 23 weeks pregnant with her first baby.
She had a flu shot just before she fell pregnant earlier this year and having recently experienced a case of the common cold she is very wary of catching another virus.
“I got sick when I was 12 weeks pregnant, just a standard common cold but it was like it was on steroids, I was out for 2 weeks and so worried,” she said.
“I can only imagine how bad the flu would be. I recover quite quickly usually but this was, honestly, deathly.”