Yuen: Making pregnant women say “yes” with the COVID-19 vaccine

More than half of her pregnancy, Maggie Price has not been drawn into a destructive disinformation campaign about the COVID-19 vaccine. She had not been targeted by false conspiracy theories suggesting that a virus “spike protein” could bind to the ovary, causing infertility or birth defects.

She also hadn’t heard a prominent anti-vaccine link the shots to “globalists and depopulation eugenics, the avowed Satanists who are there to destroy the world. (This is also extremely false.)

Price, of Delano, was living her life as a busy mother and business owner during a pandemic, struggling to stay on top of the latest research and trying to protect the growing baby inside of her. She and her family – including a toddler and second-year twins – washed their hands thoroughly, put on masks and did everything we were told to help protect us from the coronavirus.

But Price was still reluctant to get the shot.

“Whatever you put in your body, you think about it more than if you weren’t pregnant,” she said. “My initial hesitation was, if I didn’t have to, and we could stay safe – this is the ideal scenario. As a pregnant woman, you are trying to make the best choice for you and your child to to be born. “

Then, as the delta variant began to spread like kudzu this summer, his thoughts turned to the start of the school year. She knew that her children would likely be in classrooms where their classmates were not masked. Her family was already ill with COVID-19 last year – the result of exposure at school – and they didn’t want to risk another fight with the disease.

Price has also started reading reports of pregnant patients infected with the virus who have been forced to give birth early, been placed on a ventilator, or who have had even lost their lives. COVID-19 vaccination rates among expectant mothers are incredibly low: only about one third of pregnant women got the shots.

So Price did something that is unfortunately becoming less common these days: she spoke to her doctor.

Weeks before her due date, she brought her questions and concerns to her OB-GYN, Dr Jewelia Wagner, during a regular prenatal check-up. This is the same doctor who gave birth to Price’s twins eight years ago.

“I trusted him 100% completely,” said Price, acknowledging that not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to quality medical care and a long-standing relationship with a doctor. “That’s all I needed – that nod from her to say, ‘What you are seeing is real, I have experienced it firsthand, and research shows [the vaccine] is safe and effective for pregnant women. “

This conversation, in which Price and his obstetrician weighed the pros and cons of getting the vaccine, lasted less than 10 minutes. In the end, Price was convinced that the risk of developing COVID-19 during pregnancy far outweighed the disadvantages of getting the vaccine. The same day, she made an appointment to be vaccinated.

Moms-to-be should not be looked down upon for their uncertainty about the vaccine. Earlier in the pandemic, many, like Price, simply yearned for more data studying the possible effects on pregnant women. As is the norm for clinical trials, the initial vaccine studies intentionally excluded them, and as a result, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that pregnant people “may choose to be vaccinated” but I did not recommend it initially.

But emerging research has shown that the vaccine poses no increased risk of miscarriage or infertility. In August, the The CDC gave its full support for pregnant women to get vaccinated. And last month he released his the strongest advice yet urging the vaccine immediately for pregnant women, given that they are at higher risk of becoming seriously ill from the disease. According to the agency, about 97% of infected pregnant women who have been hospitalized – either for an illness or for labor and delivery – have not been vaccinated.

Wagner, Price’s doctor, said she spent a lot of time counseling her patients at the Sofia Clinic sites in Edina and Maple Grove about the vaccine. She introduces them to studies that have proven to be safe and combines the research with what she has seen in her own practice. If her patients are still unsure, she gives them time to think it over and says the choice must ultimately come from them.

“In the long term, I just hope we can get back to this trust issue. If you don’t believe one doctor, go to another, then go to another,” she said. “This is the great thing about the American health care system – you can get multiple opinions.”

But the providers of false information about vaccines, especially on the internet, prey on people who are trying to conceive and want nothing more than to have children, or who are already pregnant and want nothing more than to have babies born safe and sound.

“What a great target,” Wagner said. “What a great fear.”

Price was fully immunized by the time she gave birth to a healthy daughter at the end of September. “No side effects whatsoever,” she said of the vaccine.

Among her clients – Price is an interior designer – she knows many women aligned with the “wellness” community who remain skeptical of vaccinations. And in her conservative-leaning county, where some are reluctant to admit getting the vaccine, she didn’t hesitate to raise her hand and say she received the vaccine during her pregnancy.

And the most reassuring in all of this? In what can be considered an act of protection from a mother, she passed on COVID-fighting antibodies to her newborn daughter.

“She’s perfect,” Price said.

(Read an interview with Dr Nipunie Rajapakse, a Mayo Clinic doctor who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases, including COVID-19.)