Coronavirus vaccines for pregnant women are now encouraged
Docs: Offers benefits to both mom and baby
Doctors now say evidence points toward the coronavirus vaccines being safe for pregnant women — and could even end up with the added benefit of transferring immunity to the baby.
“I thought getting vaccinated was the best thing to protect myself, my other patients, my colleagues, my family and my baby too,” said Ina Schwartz, an anesthesiology resident at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton.
Schwartz is 24 weeks pregnant with a baby girl, and has a highrisk job due to her close contact with patients.
She received her first shot in December after consulting with her doctor and viewing recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that say vaccines should not be withheld from pregnant women.
“There is no current evidence that suggests that the vaccine will be harmful to the fetus,” Schwartz said.
Coronavirus vaccines were not tested in pregnant women during clinical trials, causing some hesitancy for expecting moms.
But Dr. Amen Ness, chair of maternal-fetal medicine at St. Elizabeth’s, echoed Schwartz and said some participants were indeed pregnant without knowing, and in the time that the vaccines have been authorized, many pregnant women have been safely immunized.
The coronavirus vaccines are “similar to the other vaccines we have given … that again have no evidence that they should, or even theoretically could, cause a problem,” Ness said.
Pregnant women can be at a higher risk for coronavirus complications if infected with the disease.
As of Feb. 16, there have been over 30,000 pregnancies reported in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s post-vaccination health checker called v-safe, and no specific safety issues have been observed.
The CDC is also enrolling people in a pregnancy registry, and no differences in miscarriages, stillbirths, gestational diabetes, preterm births and other conditions have been observed in the registry, in which there are at least 1,800 pregnant women.
In addition, there are other vaccine benefits for mom and baby. Ness said as with other vaccines, there is evidence coronavirus antibodies could be passed from the mother to her baby, offering some protection to the newborn.
“If mom has antibodies for a specific illness, she gives it to the baby and that’s going to happen,” said Ness.
Ness also added that there is no evidence the vaccines can cause fertility issues.
Despite the benefits and encouraging safety data, some soon-to-be parents are still hesitant. In a survey conducted last month among 400 users of Ovia Health, a Boston-based app for women and families, 52.5% of pregnant users said they are not planning on getting a coronavirus vaccine once it is available to them.
About 23% said yes and 20% said they were still deciding. Nearly 68% of pregnant women who responded to the survey said they could use more information on getting the vaccine during pregnancy.
Gina Nebesar, co-founder of Ovia Health who’s pregnant with her third child, said, “There’s so much information out there on the pandemic, on the vaccine, and so much of it is not specialized to new and expecting parents, so I think that leads to a lot of the misconceptions and misinformation.”
Nebesar said she plans on getting vaccinated, and added, “The current data shows that it’s not only safe but the benefits of getting vaccination outweigh the potential harm of getting the virus.”