Here’s How Louisiana Doctors Debunk Myths About COVID Vaccine And Pregnancy Coronavirus

A group of Louisiana women doctors said on Friday that misinformation wrongly linked coronavirus vaccines to infertility and poor pregnancy outcomes, adding that the myths have had worrying repercussions for the state as more in addition to local pregnant women are hospitalized with the coronavirus.

“We are seeing healthy young women getting very sick in intensive care,” said Dr Jane Martin, an Ochsner Health System Maternal and Fetal Medicine Fellow who specializes in high-risk pregnancy care.

“We have a ton of women in the hospital who are pregnant with COVID,” Martin added during an Ochsner press briefing Friday to debunk the lies. “They are almost all unvaccinated.… It affects pregnant women, the fetus, her newborn at home.”

Martin weighed the same decision on whether or not to receive the coronavirus vaccine during pregnancy several months ago. She received her first dose of the coronavirus vaccine when she was 34 weeks pregnant, her second dose at 37 weeks pregnant, and delivered her healthy baby about a week later.

The decision to get the vaccine was easy, she said, as she was treating critically ill pregnant women who had the virus in hospital. Since her baby was born six months ago, the volume of information continued to grow as encourages pregnant women and women of childbearing age to receive the vaccine.

the The New England Journal of Medicine published a new study last month specifically on mRNA vaccines – including the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines – and pregnancy. The study found no increase in the rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes in those who had been vaccinated.

“The good news is that we have great data that shows the COVID vaccine does not increase the risk of infertility, birth defects, miscarriage, or poor pregnancy outcomes for women,” Martin said.

Yet despite research and evidence, misinformation about coronavirus vaccines and pregnancy continues to flourish on social media. Even within the hospital, not all healthcare workers are immune to myths: Ochsner recently saw an increase in the number of staff getting vaccinated, but their vaccination rate is still 63%.

Dr Katherine Baumgarten, medical director of infection control and prevention at Ochsner, said the effects of the virus had been “devastating to our community.”

“We are trying to encourage people to talk to their doctors, to go back to their original sources, to dispel the misinformation,” she said.

And Ochsner neurosurgeon Dr Erin Biro spoke about the importance of using both good data and his own personal stories to fight the fear around coronavirus vaccines. Biro has enrolled his three children – aged 6, 3.5 and 14 months – in clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine is currently only approved for children 12 years of age and older.

She said she was hesitant to do this at first, especially since there is some data showing rare side effects of heart inflammation known as myocarditis and pericarditis in children who were vaccinated.

But “if you actually look at the data, the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after COVID is much, much greater,” she said. And the delta variant of the coronavirus leads to more severe cases of coronavirus in children, cementing Biro’s decision to enroll his children in school.

Pregnant women and women of childbearing age who continue to refuse the vaccine could face a difficult road. Martin pointed to several studies which have found that pregnant women are at greater risk of contracting severe coronavirus disease, must be admitted to intensive care units, be placed on a ventilator and even die. Meanwhile, there is evidence that pregnant women who have received the coronavirus vaccine pass protective antibodies to their newborns.

“Your OB-GYN doctors are begging you to go get your COVID vaccine,” she said.