A new report from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore suggests that pregnant mothers who receive flu shots also their own protecting their babies from developing the flu after they are born. This is good news since in the United States doctors do not recommend vaccinations for  babies less than 6 months old.

“Our data show that a single dose of maternal influenza vaccine provides a considerable two-for-one benefit to both mothers and their young infants,” says lead researcher Mark C. Steinhoff, MD.

Researchers also found that babies born to vaccinated mothers had a 63 percent lower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza compared to babies whose mothers  had not received the flu shot. Also, researchers found that respiratory illness with fever also declined, from 153 cases among infants born to unvaccinated mothers to 110 cases among babies whose mothers had gotten the flu shot.