There's been a lot of press swirling around the potentially heightened dangers for pregnant women exposed to the swine flu.  Despite being labeled a "high risk" group and receiving first dibs on the vaccine, many moms to be are not only wary, but rejecting the purportedly protective injection outright.  Are these women putting themselves and their babies at risk?  We asked our Parents Ask expert Dr. Bob Sears to weigh in:

Dr. Bob Sears: I agree that any flu (H1N1 or seasonal) poses a risk to pregnant women. But this risk isn't that much different than other groups.  There have been (very tragically) about 28 fatalities in pregnant women nationwide from the H1N1.  But there have been thousands of deaths overall, so pregnant women are only a minority compared to all the fatalities.  To put this in perspective, there are about 5 million pregnant women in the U.S. each year.  28 deaths means a risk of only 1 in about 175,000 pregnant women in the U.S. this year.  Those are extrememly low odds.  So, I don't think we should be singling pregnant women out as a particularly high risk.  I believe their risk is about the same as everyone else's.