Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the hesitancy of pregnant women to get the COVID-19 vaccine seemed especially understandable. Pregnancy is a time of questions, and concern for the health and well-being of the baby is paramount. And, initial COVID-19 vaccine trials excluded pregnant women, because evidence-backed guidance lagged. At that point, questions outnumbered answers.
But safety data grew as time passed, because many women who did enroll in the vaccine trials were pregnant, though they didn’t know it at the time. “So we do have original data from those women as well as studies that are ongoing specifically in pregnancy,” said Eva Pressman, M.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “We have registries of more than 140,000 women who received the vaccine during pregnancy and reported information about their outcomes,” Pressman said in a September 2021 interview.
Pregnant women are considered a high risk group for severe COVID-19 illness. As experience with the vaccine increases, new data are available and the current advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, is that vaccination does not increase the chance of miscarriage. Though the vaccines are relatively new, the science – and numbers – support their safety.
“We now have information from hundreds of thousands of pregnancies that the COVID vaccine does not increase the risk of birth defects or pregnancy complications like preeclampsia or pre-term labor. On the contrary, COVID infection has been associated with increased risk of pre-term labor, preeclampsia and miscarriage. We know that the vaccine is much safer in pregnancy than the disease itself,” Pressman, a high-risk pregnancy expert, said.
Realization of the dangers of coronavirus infection during pregnancy has evolved, and in August, the CDC officially recommended that all pregnant persons, those thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding get vaccinated against COVID-19. Other groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, recommended the vaccination weeks earlier. The World Health Organization (WHO) states they have “no reason to believe there are specific risks that outweigh the benefits of vaccination for pregnant women.”
Only about 31% of pregnant women ages 18 to 49 had been vaccinated against COVID-19 as of late September, according to CDC. From January 2020 to late September 2021, CDC reported over 125,000 cases of COVID-19 in pregnant women, resulting in more than 22,000 hospitalizations and 161 deaths. The delta variant is reported to result in even more severe illness in pregnant patients. As safety data increase and the numbers of vaccine requirements go up, practitioners and health organizations believe it is likely the rate of those vaccinated during pregnancy will also increase.
The decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccine should be a shared decision among a woman, her care partner(s) and medical provider(s). The conversations can be life-saving.
For more information from CDC on COVID-10 vaccination while pregnant or breastfeeding, visit bit.ly/covid19pregnant
Health means…pregnant women and their babies benefit from COVID-19 vaccines.
Contributor: Sandy Procter
Sources
American Public Health Association. Pregnant women urged to get COVID-19 shots. In the Nation’s Health, Nov/Dec 2021, p. 1. Available online at www.thenationshealth.org.
Boynton, Emily. University of Rochester Medical Center. September 9, 2021. Is the COVID vaccine safe for pregnant people? What about when you are breastfeeding? Accessed online at urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/is-the-covid-vaccine-safe-for pregnant-people retrieved on November 3, 2021.
