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The reluctance to get vaccinated is likely driven by fluctuating guidance from health officials earlier in the pandemic. Initially the CDC said that pregnant people could get the vaccine but it did not recommend it. That’s because the initial vaccine studies did not intentionally include pregnant people, although there were some participants who became pregnant during the studies. But that all changed in the summer. In late July, two leading OBGYN associations threw their unequivocal support behind the vaccine, and in August, the CDC formally recommended the vaccine after studies showed no increased risk of miscarriage. Last month, the CDC sent out an urgent plea that strongly recommended pregnant people get the shot immediately.
Still, low vaccine uptake in this population persists. And it’s translating into a worrying uptick in hospital admissions that is leaving some new mothers stuck in hospital and fighting for their lives for weeks before ever holding their newborns. Others will never meet their babies.
At least 180 pregnant people have died from Covid since the start of the pandemic, with 22 deaths recorded in August alone, according to the CDC. The death rates among this group are particularly sobering, given that annual maternal mortality rates excluding Covid hover around 700 annually. More than 22,500 pregnant people have been hospitalized with Covid since the start of the pandemic, with 12% of those cases resulting in admission to the ICU, according to the CDC figures.
The outlook in England is even more bleak. One in five of the country’s most critically ill Covid patients are unvaccinated pregnant women, the National Health Service (NHS) said in a Monday statement. Pregnant women accounted for almost a third (32%) of all women between the ages of 16 and 49 on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) — a medical therapy used only when a patient’s lungs are so damaged that a ventilator cannot maintain oxygen levels, the NHS said. This was up from…
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Source : cnn
