New research suggests flu during pregnancy may increase the risk of a child developing bipolar disorder later in life. A study of 814 expectant women showed that children are four times more likely to develop the mood disorder if their mothers suffered from influenza while pregnant, which could lead to new vaccination policies. Experts say the risks are still fairly low and that the study needs to be performed with a larger sample of women before researchers draw further conclusions. But similar studies have shown a link between flu and schizophrenia, and research in the early 1960s at Columbia University Medical Center found that bipolar disorder was nearly four times as common in people whose mothers had the flu while pregnant.
