Stay Healthy throughout Your Pregnancy

Here's why: About one in five people—adults and children—get the seasonal flu each year. You might tough it out at home or you might find yourself one of the more than 200,000 people hospitalized each year with flu-related complications, such as dehydration, bacterial or viral pneumonia, infections of the brain and spinal cord, Reye syndrome, heart conditions or seizures (a flu-related complication for children). If you are pregnant or have a chronic health condition like congestive heart failure, asthma or other lung diseases or diabetes, you're particularly susceptible to complications associated with flu.

Then there's the simple—but scary—fact that every year about 36,000 people in the United States die from seasonal flu.