In the Spirit of Informed Consent & H1N1 Vaccine

I am not a medical health professional. I do not hold any medical degree. I do not tell women what choices to make concerning their bodies and their babies. I do believe women have the right to understand all the known benefits and known risks of any choice they are about to make. That is part of informed consent.

But what about possible risk? Risk that hasn't been completely assessed yet? Pregnant women have been told in the past that a drug they were prescribed by a doctor was completely safe, had no known risks, only to tragically find out later there was horrible risk. Anyone who has heard of Thalidomide babies knows this to be true.

How does this happen? Most women don't know that very few drugs are actually tested on pregnant women. After all who would want to volunteer? Doctors prescribe based on knowing the benefits, knowing the risk of not prescribing and knowing there are no known risks. Therefore we learn about true known risk to moms and babies only over time.

Today I was made aware of a disturbing site where women are sharing their stories of miscarriage and their belief it was caused by the H1N1 vaccine. This gave me pause. What if I don't tell women about this possibility and it turns out to be true? What if I do and a woman chooses not to get vaccinated only to die from Swine Flu complications? So in the spirit of informed consent I decided to arm pregnant moms with information and then let women make their own choice.

First let me be clear there is no proof, there is no study that has been done to show a causal link, currently there is no way to be sure if the vaccine caused these miscarriages. As far as I know there was no large study that was done on pregnant women before they started vaccinating them with H1N1 either. I don't know if anyone is even compiling the data on miscarriages and H1N1 vaccination since the medical establishment has decided to believe the vaccine is safe for pregnant moms. I do know it will take overwhelming numbers of miscarriages before anyone will listen to the mothers.

Remember over many years lots of pregnant women have had the annual flu vaccine though with no known harm to them or their babies. Each year the vaccine is reconfigured to match that year's flu. This year's flu is H1N1. Why would H1N1 be different? The answer is I don't know. I don't know if it is different, but I don't know they know for sure it is the same.

We do know Swine Flu is a risk to pregnant women.

So now we have known benefits vs. no known risk but possible unknown risk. Every pregnant mom needs to make a careful individual choice. Does she have other underlying health factors? Does she have contact with lots of people who might be potential carriers? Is she someone that gets sick with every new bug that comes around?

Life is full of risk. Usually we choose a path not without risk but one that has a risk we are more comfortable with. Only you can know which path that is.