A Pregnant Woman’s Story of Swine Flu

In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure.

SHOOT: Don't make the mistake of thinking it's always mild and no big deal. When it's bad, it's pretty horrible.

clipped from well.blogs.nytimes.com Pregnant women appear to be highly vulnerable to serious complications from swine flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that since April, 100 pregnant women have been in intensive care with swine flu and 28 have died. One of the survivors is Aubrey Opdyke, a 27-year-old Florida waitress and former high-school swimmer who was hospitalized with swine flu during her pregnancy and lost her baby. Donald G. McNeil Jr., a reporter for The New York Times, tells her story in today’s Science Times. In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure. High-pressure ventilation blew her up like a molten balloon until “she looked like she weighed 400 pounds,” her husband, Bryan, said, and she has stretch marks from her neck to her ankles. Her muscles and lungs are still so weak that she uses a walker. To learn more, read the full story Flu Story: A Pregnant Woman’s Ordeal