Pregnancy
One of the big reasons why, despite Covid-19’s known risks in pregnancy, not everyone has unequivocally recommended the vaccines... is that the way they work is fairly new. - Katherine Harmon Courage
image by: Saleema Khan
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Why COVID Vaccines Are Likely Safe for Pregnant People
As the initial priority groups are being offered a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., one population in particular faces a difficult decision: Pregnant people who are health care personnel or essential workers—categories that are eligible for the early phases of the vaccination program—“may choose to be vaccinated,” according to the latest official guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The problem is that there are scant data available on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant individuals. They were not included in the clinical trials, as has historically been the case with most vaccines and drugs.
“We’ve put pregnant women between a rock and a hard place,”…
Resources
I Study Pathogens and Pregnancy. Here’s What I Know About Covid-19
What everyone should know is that there are a considerable number of pregnant women who have been vaccinated and protected against Covid-19 and have had healthy babies. Vaccination during pregnancy provides triple protection: to the mother, the developing fetus and the future health of the newborn.
Inside The Manipulative World Of Social Media’s False COVID Vaccine Narratives
Dr. Michelle Rockwell woke up one morning to find her own miscarriage appropriated by the anti-vaccine movement.
Pregnant Women Get Conflicting Advice on Covid-19 Vaccines
The W.H.O. and the C.D.C. provide differing views, and experts partly blame a lack of data because expectant mothers have been excluded from clinical trials.
The coronavirus vaccine presents a dilemma for Pregnant Women
Vaccine trials have excluded the pregnant population, even though women of reproductive age make up a majority of frontline workers.
The evidence that Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective in pregnancy is growing
Covid-19 shots during pregnancy might also pass on protection against the virus to babies.
A Pregnant Med Student Explains Her Decision to Get the COVID Vaccine
Like many medical studies, the trials that produced the two COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S. excluded pregnant people. Rather than worry about the possible—if extremely unlikely—risks to the fetus in a clinical trial, it’s easier for pharmaceutical companies to simply leave pregnancy out of the equation.
Information on COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant or breastfeeding individuals has been inconsistent and hard to find
As we take stock of our response to this pandemic, it is important to consider the implications of excluding pregnant and breastfeeding people from clinical trials and consider how we can do better next time.
Pregnant and lactating women should not be excluded from Covid-19 drug, vaccine trials
Citizens of the world are holding their collective breath while awaiting vaccines and therapies to effectively battle the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them are pregnant or lactating women who, in the United States and elsewhere, are being excluded from trials testing new vaccines or treatments. Reluctance to rigorously study the effectiveness and safety of vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 during pregnancy is misguided and will end up harming pregnant women now and in the future.
Pregnant People Haven't Been Part Of Vaccine Trials. Should They Get The Vaccine?
"Knowing what I know about the [mRNA vaccine's] mechanism of action, I would anticipate that this vaccine should be very safe in pregnancy," Jamieson says.
Shattering the infertility myth: What we know about Covid-19 vaccines and pregnancy
During trying times, myths and falsehoods sprout like mushrooms after rainfall. One of many that has emerged so far during the Covid-19 pandemic is that vaccines against the disease will cause infertility in women. It won’t.
The COVID Vaccine Wasn’t Tested on Pregnant People. Now They’re Worried
Vaccines are typically safe, and pregnant women have been routinely vaccinated against various diseases since the 1960s. But it may take years or even decades for the full effects of the rapidly developed coronavirus vaccines—if there are any—become known. The specter of thalidomide also haunts the medical profession: Prescribed to treat pregnant women’s nausea in the 1950s and 1960s, the drug caused severe birth defects in thousands of children.
Why Is the Virus Killing So Many Pregnant Women in India?
The virus is not sparing expectant mothers even among the upper and middle classes in India’s major cities, who always had the financial resources and better access to health care than people in impoverished villages.
Why COVID Vaccines Are Likely Safe for Pregnant People
The scantness of available data leaves the decision up to the individual and their doctors, though benefits can outweigh risks in some cases.
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