The publicity for the H1N1 vaccine is pervasive. Pregnant women are being focused on as a group that should be first in line to receive the vaccine. The fact that the vaccine is highly experimental and contains mercury (thimerosol preservative) has not escaped pregnant women and childbirth workers.
When the public is polled about who will take the H1N1 vaccine, almost half the population say they will refuse it. Thanks to the internet and other people-centered media, the experts who disagree with this mass population vaccine program have gotten the message out that the vaccine is far more dangerous than the disease.
What can a pregnant woman do to protect herself from H1N1 if she refuses the vaccine program?
Again, the media suggestions of sneezing into your sleeve and washing your hands with toxic sanitizers don’t get to the heart of the issue. We all need to take charge of having the best immune response possible so these suggestions, although directed at pregnant women in the fall of 2009, are good lifestyle advice for everyone.
1. Go to bed at 10 p.m. or earlier in a very dark room. Healthy sleep is important. Get rid of lighting in the bedroom (nightlights, electronic clocks, etc.)
2. Change your bedding and towels once a week.
3. Eat foods high in Vitamin C. Grapefruit, oranges, kiwi fruit and red peppers. Get used to these fruits as dessert.
4. Eliminate white sugar and flour from your diet.
5. Eliminate caffeine (coffee, tea, colas, chocolate).
6. Buy a wool scarf and mittens and be sure to bundle up warmly when you go out into the cold. Scarves help maintain your body heat and can be unwrapped and stuffed into your pocket when you go into a store or office building to adjust your warmth level.
7. If you feel the first tickle of a cold or sore throat, cancel everything and go straight to bed with hot herbal tea and a bag of grapefruit. Nip it in the bud with rest, Vitamin C and inner warmth.
8. Here’s a link to herbs that are safe in pregnancy. Learn to love your herb teas.
9. Slow down and enjoy your pregnancy. This is a special time in your life. Say “no” to overbooking yourself and consider quitting work earlier than you planned.
10. Keep your partner healthy, too.
Your baby will thank you for adopting these measures and you’ll have more energy, too. The first 3 days are the hardest and, then, you’ll love this routine. I’m sure the comments will have lots more tips, too, read on.
Great tips,
Let’s stay healthy !
Thanks Gloria
Hi Gloria,
In light of our immune system and cytokine, I would like to caution against using just any kind of herbs and/or other immune boosting remedies that work on Th1.
This is an interesting blog post about this
http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2009/05/swine-flu-and-avoiding-cytokine-storm.html
There is a great book out about autoimmune disease at http://www.thyroidbook.com.
It’s about Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism, but applies to all autoimmune
disease.
The reason it’s useful is it outlines which herbs/nutrients modulate the
immune system and/or suppress the side of the immune system that would
create a cytokine storm. There are even products designed for these specific
actions that you can get from naturopathic doctors (specifically
X-FLM).
Outside of that, fish oil, vitamin D and glutathione exert modulating
effects. Vit. D alone is going to keep people healthiest, and if a pregnant woman takes an adequate amount of fatty acid, there is no risk for toxicity.
This is from a naturopath I know and may give additional information.
http://nalukainaturalhealth.blogspot.com/
PS: echinacea, astragalus and the various immune supportive mushrooms are the main Th1 boosting to avoid.
Black Elderberry on the other hand, has a very high ORAC score, meaning it is high in antioxidants- the nutrients seen as important in reducing the likelihood of a cytokine storm.
However, it is not yet fully understood whether or not it also has other properties that can actually stimulate Th-1 and potentially a cytokine storm. Based on the findings in this study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11399518
I’d be cautious in using a lot of it if you thought you had the swine flu.
One thing that has helped to keep me healthy is nasal gavage. I use a Neti Pot with 1/4 t. sea salt and 1/4 t. baking soda with warm water. Every day and then if I come in contact with anyone who is ill I go home and do it again. An ENT I had to go to told me that if all his patients did this he would be out of business. I haven’t had a sinus infection in years and I used to get them regularly.
To add a correction, the prefilled syringes of both types of flu vaccine do NOT contain thimerisol which is why they are safe in pregnancy.
Gail, you have to carefully read the doubletalk at the CDC website. They say that all the flu vaccines (including prefilled syringes for pregnant women and children) contain thimerosol. They have decided that the dilution of the mercury is so great that they can call it “preservative free”. Does that mean it IS preservative free. . . NO. There is no amount of mercury that is safe to inject into the body of a pregnant woman or child.
Here’s the link to the CDC contents in flu vaccines:
http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/ABOUT/QA/thimerosal.htm