The rise of countless doubts on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine during these unprecedented times is natural, especially when it comes to taking vaccine by pregnant women. And the truth is, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers are required to be provided more attention owing to the reason that they are more vulnerable and are reported to have experiencing more complications of this deadly infection called coronavirus.
Many myths have been mushrooming regarding the intake of the vaccine and the fake news have become successful to create strong foundations in the minds of the women.
Let us delve deep and understand the facts
Statistics from around the world:
In the United States where a lot of pregnant healthcare workers are vaccinated, only minimal side effects have been observed. After these health workers gave birth to their babies, only those were restrained from breastfeeding their child who showed some symptoms of the infection. Rest women, after getting tested, were allowed to touch their child and feed them.
The viral molecule is not expressed in the breast milk, so the newly become mothers should not worry about any adverse impact . According to Dr Hinduja:- A new-born can be breastfed if the mother is vaccinated, but if the woman is infected, feeding the breast milk to the child should be avoided to lower the risk of the vertical transmission of COVID-19 from mother to the child.
However, there is no data about the clinical trials available to comment on the transmission due to lactation to the new-born. We can say that our direct knowledge about the efficacy of the vaccine on pregnant and lactating women is currently limited. Various other studies on vaccine volunteers including pregnant women are underway and the clear data will be divulged once the statistics are made public by the authorities.
More than 30,000 pregnant volunteers who were vaccinated are being tracked by CDC (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and approximately 1,800 have provided detailed descriptions of the symptoms they observed after the vaccination. So far, the pregnant and breastfeeding women observed the same minor side effects as did the nonpregnant individuals. Therefore , it can be said that miscarriages, preterm births, stillbirths or any other complications not associated with the aftermaths of getting
vaccinated.
Important points:
● During animal tests, Covid vaccines were not accounted for any fertility problems with pregnancy.
● The vaccines claim to improve immunity In humans. Also, if we talk about other kinds of vaccines that generally are safe to be used in pregnancy, many of them boost the immunity of a pregnant individual and that is why they are recommended to be taken by the expecting mothers. The covid shield vaccines also generate immunity that is said to be capable of crossing the placenta and even may help keep the baby safe after birth. No virus particle is added to the vaccines so technically, vaccination does not appear to be at all unhealthy for new mothers and the expecting ladies.
● One more important point regarding this context is, the type of vaccines. Although it is known that the most pregnant women are being offered the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines as much as possible due to the reason that the initial trials on these types of vaccines showed no safety concerns. The fact that pregnant women should be treated with utmost care, only trialed vaccines can be the best assurance towards safety.
● The risk of complications from COVID-19 may be higher during the third trimester. Although the pregnant women can get vaccinated at any stage of pregnancy, some have been suggested to choose to wait until after 12 weeks.
● In the initial time of the pandemic, the vaccine was only being provided to pregnant women who were frontline healthcare workers and also to those who were extremely clinically vulnerable. As no adverse impacts were seen, the advice was updated and the vaccination process was extended to all pregnant individuals.
In the case of India, till now, most expecting women and mothers of newborns preferred to receive covid-19 jabs to shield themselves against this fatal respiratory disease.
A result of the survey conducted on the ratio on pregnant women taking vaccination was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology that indicated that vaccine acceptance was highest( above 60% ) in India followed by the Philippines and countries in Latin America. Unfortunately and surprisingly, women in Russia , the US, and Australia were reluctant to get vaccinated and only less than 50 % pregnant and breastfeeding women opted to go for it.
However, the truth is, there is not evidence on the adversities of the vaccine. It is safe for everybody, including pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.