FLU shots are usually considered safe for pregnant women. Now it seems that their unborn babies can respond to the vaccine too.
Our immune system protects us from infection by launching specific reactions against foreign substances. While this 鈥渁daptive鈥� immune response was thought to develop only after birth, evidence is now emerging that a baby鈥檚 immune system may not be as immature as was thought (New 杏吧原创, 29 April 2006, p 12).
To test this, Rachel Miller and her colleagues at Columbia University in New York searched fetal cord blood for T and B-cells that recognise the maternal flu vaccine (Journal of Clinical Investigation, vol 117, p 1637). They found T-cells that had come from the baby rather than the mother, and that were specific to the flu vaccine, in 35 per cent of the cord samples. They also found vaccine-specific antibodies produced by B-cells in 39 per cent of the fetal samples. Miller now hopes to find out whether the babies already have some protection against flu, by measuring their immune response when they receive their own flu shots.
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Ofer Levy at Children鈥檚 Hospital Boston believes Miller鈥檚 work may lead to vaccines that could protect children even before they are born.
