Does Covid-19 Vaccination Protect Your Baby During Pregnancy?
Getting a COVID-19 vaccination can protect you from becoming severely sick from COVID-19, and staying healthy throughout your pregnancy is vital for your unborn baby’s health. Pregnant women have a higher risk of COVID-19 infection, ICU hospitalization, and mortality, as well as adverse pregnancy outcomes. If a woman is pregnant, vaccination is the best approach to protect herself and her unborn child.
How Can Covid-19 Affect Your Unborn Baby?
COVID-19 infection during pregnancy has been reported to cause the following symptoms:
- A higher chance of premature birth
- Some evidence points to an elevated risk of stillbirth.
- Although uncommon, COVID-19 can pass on to the fetus during pregnancy
Following delivery, reports have shown:
- A higher chance that babies born to women who got COVID-19 during pregnancy will need to be cared for in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)
- A newborn can contract the virus if exposed to it
How Much Does Vaccination Help?
A study headed by federal researchers found that babies born to moms who were vaccinated during pregnancy were considerably less likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19. This adds to the expanding body of data supporting maternal immunization.
In February 2022, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a study revealing that Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy was 61% protective, indicating that babies under 6 months who had their mothers immunized were 61% less likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19.
CDC researchers examined 379 hospitalized children under six months to see if their mothers had been immunized during pregnancy. According to the research, 84% of newborns hospitalized with Covid-19 were delivered by mothers who had not been vaccinated during pregnancy. 88% of newborns admitted to the ICU with Covid-19 were delivered by mothers who had not been immunized before or during pregnancy.
Conclusion
Research continues to show that Covid-19 vaccination is helpful not only for pregnant women but also for unborn babies. We encourage pregnant women to get vaccinated to safeguard the health of both themselves and their unborn babies. You can also reach out to Lescale Maternal Medicine or visit our 4 locations.
