When you are pregnant, it is understandable that you feel cautious. After all, they tell you to avoid all kinds of things (soft cheeses, alcohol, certain medications) because they could be harmful to the baby. You may be surprised that a medical treatment is recommended that is still fairly new.
This partly explains why covid vaccination levels during pregnancy still appear to be relatively low. In August 2021, only 22% of those who gave birth had received the Covid vaccine. This leaves them and their babies at risk: between May and October 2021, 96% of those hospitalized with covid symptoms during pregnancy were not vaccinated.
In response, the government has launched a campaign urging any pregnant person to “get boosted now”. It is an important step, given that a covid infection doubles the chances of a baby being born prematurely and almost triples the chances of stillbirth. But it has taken a long time to get here, and the messages about pregnancy and covid vaccines so far have added to the reluctance among pregnant women to get vaccinated.
We now have a large body of evidence that receiving the vaccine does not increase the risk of a pregnancy complication. But in December 2020, when the vaccines were first approved, no clinical trials had been conducted during pregnancy, so the government decided it would not offer the vaccines to pregnant people at all. It quickly became clear that this was a problem, as many pregnant women were also at high risk of contracting COVID, either because they had pre-existing conditions or because they were healthcare workers who would be highly exposed to the virus. This led to a change in policy just a couple of weeks later, allowing those at high risk to receive any of the approved vaccines.
At this point, it didn’t matter on a practical level that they were not available to other pregnant women; however, they were not offered to most people under the age of 50. However, he set a tone of caution around covid vaccines and pregnancy. Most importantly, when the rules were changed again in April to allow any pregnant woman to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine along with her age group, the government fell short of recommending that they do so.
By then, we had data on the safety of covid vaccines in pregnancy, but many people did not know where to look for it. This is where I started trying to bridge the information gap, using social media to speak directly to those who make this decision for themselves and their babies. It was not until July 2021 that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG) changed its policy from “we are offering it” to “we are recommending it.” And it wasn’t until December that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization finally began prioritizing pregnant women to get vaccinated.
Although these gradual changes in policy reflect the way the evidence has accumulated, these drop-by-drop changes, in my experience, have had a real effect on the vision of the vaccine. Many ordinary people have tuned in to the message once, and the first thing they hear stays with them. Last August, when I was talking to pregnant patients, I would tell them, “It’s safe, it protects you and your baby, and RCOG recommends that you get it,” and they’d reply, “But I was talking to someone in February.” and they told me not to do it. “
Worse, policy changes were not always communicated at ground level, and some of those who were eligible for the vaccine were turned away from vaccination centers because they were pregnant.
One useful point of comparison is Canada, which initially only offered the vaccine to high-risk pregnant people, then rolled it out to everyone in the same month as the UK. But Canadian authorities decided that if there was enough evidence to offer the vaccine to someone, there was enough evidence to recommend it. When the policy changed, they came out in force with a message calling on anyone pregnant to come forward to protect themselves and their baby. As a result, in Ontario, by September 2021, almost 60% off they they were vaccinated against covid.
The UK did not deliver a message of confidence at first, which has left us scrambling to increase vaccination rates. Meanwhile, the job has been hampered by those who actively spread misinformation about vaccine safety. However, I hope that the trusted voices of the NHS and RCOG behind this new campaign will give those who make this decision the confidence that these vaccines are safe during pregnancy and are the best way to protect themselves and their babies from the potentially devastating consequences of COVID-19.
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism