Many myths have emerged about the COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy, and while a local doctor works to dispel them, a woman from Northern Virginia said that asking her doctor “in-depth questions” gave her the facts.
Many myths have emerged about the COVID-19 vaccine and pregnancy, and while a local doctor works to dispel them, a woman from Northern Virginia said that asking her doctor “in-depth questions” gave her the facts.
Getting to the truth is important because pregnant women and patients with COVID-19 are more likely than others to die, be hospitalized or put on ventilators. Guidance from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology says that vaccines should not be denied to pregnant women.
The Health Checker After V-safe Vaccination at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month had data on more than 30,000 pregnancies. “And they found no security concerns,” said Dr. Amy Banulis, an obstetrician at Kaiser Permanente at Falls Church. “Specifically, no unexpected pregnancies or child outcomes and no increase in the rate of miscarriage. So this is very, very comforting. “
She added: “The COVID vaccine in pregnancy is absolutely considered safe. There was no demonstrated risk. None of the vaccines that are currently approved – none of them are live vaccines, so there is no chance of getting sick with the vaccine. There is no chance that the vaccine will make your baby sick. “
Another myth about the vaccine: it causes infertility. “This is absolutely not the case,” said Banulis. “This has been refuted – there have been a lot of good scientific studies around it,” she said.
Yet another myth concerns how mRNA vaccines, such as COVID-19 vaccines, work, teaching cells how to make a protein, or even just a piece of a protein, to trigger an immune response.
“Vaccines do not enter the cell’s nucleus; they do not alter human DNA, so they cannot cause any genetic change, ”said Banulis.
The ACOG guideline says that the three vaccines currently available have not been tested in pregnant women and that “limited specific safety data for use in pregnancy is available”. He recommends that women talk to their doctors. This is what Jessica Rudzinski, 33, of Falls Church, has done repeatedly.
She said that doing so led her on an “unknown, cautious and really positive” journey towards her support for getting the vaccine.
Rudzinski is seven months pregnant. She received the first of two COVID-19 vaccines a few weeks ago.
“I asked my OB a lot of difficult, specific and thorough questions because I really wanted to make sure I was making the right decision and not just following what I ‘heard’ from people or what I may have seen in a headline news, “she said.
“I would just encourage people to cut some of the noise out. Focus on what you really need now to make your decision. Keep this conversation going with your doctor and make your decision based on this information. “
Vaccine protection
Other vaccines given to pregnant women protect babies. The CDC recommends pertussis vaccination (known as whooping cough) for women in the third trimester to protect their baby at birth. It also works with the flu.
“Babies born to mothers who received the flu vaccine have a much less chance of getting the flu in the first six months of life,” noted Banulis.
It is not known whether COVID-19 vaccines work that way. But two pediatricians in South Florida have made preliminary reports, not yet certified by peer review, that a healthcare professional who received a dose of Moderna vaccine in January, at 36 weeks pregnant, gave birth to a healthy girl with IgG antibodies. against SARS-CoV-2 detectable in umbilical cord blood at delivery.
More news about Coronavirus
Looking for more information? DC, Maryland and Virginia are releasing more data every day. Visit their official websites here: Virginia | Maryland | A.D
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