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A battle is being waged for the hearts and minds of pregnant women to be vaccinated.
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Vaccine activists have been called “baby killers”.
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COVID-19 can be dangerous for pregnant women and their babies, data shows.
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Reports of deaths from COVID-19 after not receiving a vaccine are increasingly common – but no less heartbreaking.
One of the most recent – and most painful – stories comes from Northern Ireland, UK, where the newborn baby of a mother who died of COVID was baptized at her mother’s funeral.
Samantha Willis, a 35-year-old mother of three other children, has died after choosing to wait for more information on the COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy. Data now shows that inoculation is completely safe during pregnancy: but a dedicated disinformation campaign is trying to trick people into believing otherwise.
Samantha Willis’ husband Josh now talks about the importance of getting the COVID-19 vaccine: “I can’t advise people to take it, but I’m telling her story so they can make their own opinion, “he told the Derry Journal last week.
“I’ve heard stories since the weekend that people made up their minds after hearing her story, I’m sure those thousands of people who got vaccinated on Saturday and Sunday, some of them have saw my Facebook post on Friday night and the news and that was enough to tip them off to go get it. “
“A lack of information was filled with disinformation”
There is now a battle waged to get the hearts and minds of pregnant women vaccinated. Anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists say COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous for unborn babies and pregnant mothers. Attempts to explain this misinformation can unleash a torrent of abuse.
Pregnant then Screwed, a UK organization that ensures mothers’ employment rights are not infringed upon by their maternity leave, has started sharing data on COVID-19, vaccines and pregnancy.
“The hate started before Christmas when we were campaigning for breastfeeding women to have an informed choice about the vaccine,” Joeli Brearley, founder and CEO of Pregnant Then Screwed, told Insider.
“Breastfeeding and pregnancy is a very sensitive topic anyway, and if you talk about it online it can often go very wrong. scary for our team. “
Rage-filled anti-vaxx posters on social media platforms Pregnant and then Screwed have repeatedly called staff “baby killers” and accused them of wanting to poison pregnant women.
“But we didn’t stop it because we still felt very strongly that it was important,” said Brearley.
The nonprofit is now working with UK independent fact-checking organization Full Fact. They’ve set up a WhatsApp hotline to ask questions about the COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy and receive unbiased and evidence-based answers.
The UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Joint Committee on Immunization and Immunization officially approved vaccines for pregnant women in the UK in April 2021, but Brearly says the information has been “weak from the start. departure “.
“Because there was so little information, a lack of information was filled with disinformation.”
Some people genuinely believe the vaccine will kill fetuses, Brearly said. “Like many conspiracy theories regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, there is no data to back it up.”
But the anti-vaxx rhetoric is believed by many. A study from King’s College London and Ipsos Mori showed that 7% believe the COVID-19 vaccine could cause infertility, and 5% believe it will. Plus, despite evidence that it won’t, 48% say they don’t know if it might.
This has transformed a widespread reluctance to immunize among those with babies. In the United States, only 24.5% of pregnant women have received a vaccine, according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 can be dangerous for pregnant women and their babies. Data warns that contracting COVID-19 makes premature births 40% more likely, time in intensive care 14 times more likely – and death 15 times more likely.
Despite the evidence showing that COVID is more dangerous for pregnant women than vaccines, anti-vaxx messaging has been so successful due to the pre-made concerns that accompany pregnancy.
Professor of social psychology Karen Douglas at the University of Kent told Insider: “The anti-vaxx movement capitalizes on the normal worries of people, whether during pregnancy.”
Dr Daniel Allington, senior lecturer in social and cultural artificial intelligence at King’s College London, studied mistrust of the COVID-19 vaccine and told Insider that 20% of 35 to 44 year olds think it is not. not sure to have the vaccine during pregnancy, compared to 26% of 25 to 34 year olds and 28% of 18 to 24 year olds.
“One of the things that we have found is that the younger a person, the more likely they are to get their information from social media. And the less likely they are to get their information from TV, radio and the media. newspapers, including online.
“Using social media to get your information has a negative effect because it is unverified and unregulated, which means disinformation can easily flow.”
What we know about COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy
COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any living organisms that can multiply in the body, so they cannot infect, damage or kill an unborn baby in the womb, according to the NHS and CDC.
Additionally, studies show that COVID-19 vaccines do not interfere with egg function, fertility, or IVF success.
Recent data from the Yellow Card – the UK program that records side effects from drugs, including vaccinations – shows no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccines used in the UK increase the risk of miscarriages or stillbirths.
Reports from around 55,000 pregnant women who received their vaccine show no pattern of increased miscarriage rate. Unfortunately, according to the NHS, miscarriages are common, with 20-25% of UK pregnancies ending this way.
British research is supported by six global studies that show COVID-19 vaccines are safe for pregnant women, reports the Royal College of Gynecology. But anti-vaccines continue to roam the internet and social media, trying to convince people otherwise.
Dr Victoria Male, lecturer in reproductive immunology at Imperial College London, said: “To a certain extent, some people feel that they have the right to control other people’s bodies when they are pregnant. It’s a bit paternalistic, even misogynistic. “
Kyndal Nipper, an unvaccinated woman from Columbus, Ga., Was 36 weeks pregnant when she and her husband tested positive for COVID-19.
She suffered from a minor illness, including a mild fever and allergic-type symptoms, but noticed her unborn baby moved less than usual in the days following the onset of her COVID symptoms., Newsweek reported.
“So I went … straight to labor and delivery, and that’s when we found out that unfortunately our little boy was no longer with us,” she told WJTV.
Now she lives with deep regret that she was not vaccinated before she was infected and urges pregnant women to avoid the tragedy she suffered and get the vaccine.
“What’s important to me is that no other mother has to go through this pain,” Nipper said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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