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A new report released earlier this month sheds new light on the risk of being pregnant and unvaccinated against COVID-19.
The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), compared the outcomes of childbirth between pregnant women with and without COVID-19 between March 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021. What the researchers found found is that of 869,079 women’s health analyzed retrospectively, 18,715 (2.2%) had contracted COVID-19. Among the infected cohort, premature births were more common, as were ICU admission rates, intubation and hospital mortality rates. In fact, 0.1% of women with COVID-19 died in hospital, compared to 0.01% of uninfected women who died.
Notably, women who had COVID-19 in the JAMA study were more likely to be black or Hispanic than women who were not infected.
The study is the largest of its kind to date, but it is one of a handful showing similar results. This study also comes at a time when the pregnancy-related death rate in the United States has increased over the past 10 years, especially among black mothers.
Doctors across the country like Dr Arianna Cassidy, a maternal-fetal medicine scholar at the University of California, San Francisco who has worked with pregnant women for six years, have described what she considers “unprecedented.”
“With each flu season, pregnant women who contract the seasonal flu are at higher risk of needing intensive care, needing help breathing and dying even more. was particularly striking during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, ”Cassidy said. noted. “We know that pregnant women are at a higher risk of contracting respiratory illnesses, but the degree of illness that we see during pregnancy with COVID – especially for unvaccinated pregnant women, both at how much they get sick and how many people we see [in the hospital] – is simply unprecedented. “
Dr. Melissa Simon, an obstetrician gynecologist and professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, agreed with Cassidy’s assessment.
“We are seeing more and more pregnant people coming in with severe COVID-19 disease that is severe enough to require an intensive care unit, admission and intubation,” Simon said, calling it “of concern because we don’t. let’s not just talk about the health of the pregnant person themselves but also the fetus. “” This is really serious, “Simon continued.” The numbers are increasing, and we could prevent that – vaccinations could prevent that.
And the crisis among pregnant women seems to be getting worse. Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that over the past month and a half there has been an increase in the number of pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19, except for the past week . While updated research like the JAMA study shows that the risk of serious consequences from COVID-19 in pregnant women is high, vaccination rates are not. Less than 25% of pregnant women have received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to the CDC, as of July 31, 2021.
Women’s health experts say vaccine hesitancy is common among pregnant women as misinformation is rampant on social media, especially in anti-vaccination and alt-health wellness groups on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. Most of the time, myths stem from a misinterpretation of a study.
For example, the false claim that the COVID-19 vaccine can cause miscarriages likely stems from reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States. (Critically, anyone can report their experience after being vaccinated in this system.) Although miscarriages have been reported, there is no evidence that the miscarriages were linked to the vaccination; in fact, a recent study found that the miscarriage rate in vaccinated people was similar to that expected in the general population, which is 12.5%.
Likewise, there was another popular myth that allegedly started with a shared petition started by a former Pfizer scientist named Michael Yeadon who rose to popularity in anti-vax circles. Yeadon, who is known to spread misinformation about COVID-19, suggested that the bespoke protein in mRNA vaccines could cause infertility or harm pregnancy. Since then, researchers have found no link between the vaccine and infertility. Yet the mere idea that the bespoke protein mRNA vaccines would induce infertility also doesn’t hold true, due to how mRNA vaccines work.
“They [the proteins] don’t live in our bodies very long – we get the vaccine and the vaccine teaches our immune system to make these antibodies against the coronavirus spike protein, “Cassidy said.” We haven’t seen any data that vaccines them. – even are durable enough to reach the placenta, such as crossing a mother’s body and reaching the placenta, not to mention causing placenta problems. “
Cassidy pointed to a separate CDC analysis that also found no increased risk of miscarriage due to COVID-19 vaccines.
Cassidy and Simon both agreed that the lack of information about vaccines, COVID-19 and pregnancy at the start of the pandemic created a breeding ground for misinformation. During clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, pregnant women have been actively excluded.
“This is a structural problem that has been in research for a long time in this country, excluding pregnant women, women giving birth and breastfeeding,” Simon said. “And it’s really unfortunate because when certain groups are not included in clinical trials, there is relatively less data.”
But now the data is there, and doctors and women’s health organizations are urging pregnant women to get vaccinated. Especially since the new coronavirus itself can, on the other hand, worsen the outcome of pregnancy.
Simon underlined the urgency of “getting the message across in a coherent and clear way to all pregnant people”.
Simon added: “No one should deny you a chance to get the vaccine if you’re pregnant, I think it’s really important to get the message out to pregnant people.”
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