Medic tells pregnant women: ‘Get the jab to protect your baby’
PREGNANT women should not be hesitant if their clinician offers them the Covid-19 vaccine as emerging international evidence is ‘positive’, experts told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
This week HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry revealed preliminary findings of a recent study of mRNA vaccination in pregnant women as a ‘good signal’ to move forward with administering the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to prospective mothers between 14 to 36 weeks’ gestation. This is in keeping with recent advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee.
While vaccination for pregnant women has not yet started, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said the HSE is working hard to put the protocols in place ‘as quickly as possible’.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found there were ‘no obvious safety signals among pregnant persons who received mRNA Covid-19 vaccines’. The study featured 35,691 pregnant women.
In the US, around 90,000 pregnant women have received the mRNA vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna, with no safety concerns identified.
Although the overall risk from Covid-19 disease in pregnant women and their new babies is low, in later pregnancy some women may become seriously unwell, according to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC).
Pregnant women with Covid-19 have a higher risk of intensive care admission than women of the same age who are not pregnant. Women who contract the virus are also two to three times more likely to have their babies early.
Pregnant women with underlying clinical conditions are at even higher risk of suffering serious complications from Covid-19. There is also recent evidence of the B117 (UK) variant of Covid-19 causing very rare stillbirth events.
Professor of Comparative Immunology at Trinity College Dublin Dr Clíona O’Farrelly said that while she can understand the concerns of prospective mothers, historically vaccines do not cause long-term effects.
Dr O’Farelly told the MoS: ‘Not only are there no long-term effects, but there are significant benefits to the child, immediately after birth, if the mother has been vaccinated.’
She said vaccinating can protect the infant in two ways. ‘A newborn infant isn’t able to make their own antibodies, so they would be very vulnerable to infection. If the mother has been vaccinated, the antibodies can cross the placenta and protect the newborn. That’s one way. And then the second way is that there is evidence that a vaccinated mother will produce antibodies in her breast milk.
‘The risk of infection, and the possibility of disease, is so overwhelming in comparison to any other harm, you would want to be sure that didn’t get infected and the best way of doing that is by getting the vaccine.’