While most patients are either already vaccinated against COVID or keen to be vaccinated ASAP, there are some patients who are hesitant. COVID-19 Infection in PregnancyMy understanding, after discussion with hesitant patients, is this hesitancy has a lot to do with believing nonsense negative reporting about COVID vaccines on social media and incorrect negative comments made by people they know. As well there has been too much sensationalist and sometimes inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media outlets and terrible and confusing marketing of COVID vaccination by the Federal and State Governments

I suggest you stick to the facts and ignore the anti-vaxxers false statements and negative comments of ill-informed others.

A pregnant woman wants to keep her baby safe. You will be keeping your baby and you both safe by being vaccinated against COVID infection. You are putting your baby’s and your wellbeing in danger by not being vaccinated against COVID infection

There have been many thousands of pregnant women vaccinated against COVID with Pfizer – BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines in the world. We know these vaccines are safe for you and your baby.

The reason Pfizer – BioNTech and Moderna and not AstraZeneca are recommended in pregnancy is that largest cohort (over 130,000) of pregnant vaccinated women followed up is in the USA where there is only Pfizer – BioNTech and Moderna, and AstraZeneca is not available. As well there is the rare thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which has a slightly higher incidence in younger women. In Australia there have been 104 cases of TTS (59 confirmed, 45 probable) from approximately 7.4 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses. There has been only 6 deaths of the 104 suspected cases. (1)

There are occasional serious adverse reactions to any vaccine, but pregnant women don’t hesitate to have whooping cough vaccination or flu vaccination and women don’t hesitate to get their children vaccinated.

The flu vaccine formula is changed each year as the virus mutates, yet pregnant women don’t ask if the new flu vaccine formula is safe for me, my unborn baby or my child in the future.

The dangers of COVID infection in pregnancy are far greater than influenza infection in pregnancy.

Increased risk of preterm labour

This week there was reported to a large U.S. study published in The Lancet Regional Health which found pregnant women who contract COVID while pregnant have a higher risk of having preterm birth (2).

  • The preterm birth rate with a COVID diagnosis was 11.8% compared with 8.7% among those without the disease.
  • The risk of very preterm birth, which occurs at less than 32 weeks of gestation, was 60% higher for people infected with COVID during pregnancy.
  • Chances of preterm birth at less than 37 weeks were 40% in those with the COVID infection.
  • Researchers at UC San Francisco analysed all live births between July 2020 and January 2021. Of the 240,157 recorded births, nearly 9,000, or 3.7%, indicated a COVID diagnosis in pregnancy. For those with comorbidities like hypertension, diabetes and/or obesity as well as COVID-19, the risk of preterm birth rose 160%.

Increased risk of severe COVID infection if pregnant

There is increased risk of more severe COVID infection if you are pregnant. Last month in the UK a record number of pregnant women were admitted to intensive care with Covid last month.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland 66% pregnant women ended up in intensive care in July, the highest since start of the pandemic and three times as many as April last year.

A total of 46 recently pregnant women were also admitted to critical care. More than 99% of pregnant women admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

Recently on the radio I heard a husband in USA speaking. He and his wife had decided not to be COVID vaccinated. Both became COVID infected. She was in ICU at the time he was speaking and on a ventilator. She was in advanced pregnancy. He said their unbaby had just died, while she was being ventilated for severe COVD infection. This tragedy would have been avoided if she was vaccinated.

COVID vaccination is safe if you are breastfeeding 

There is no evidence to indicate that there is risk to your baby if you are vaccinated while breastfeeding. My daughter Emily has recently had her first AstraZeneca vaccine shot. She hsi breastfeeding her 10 week old son.

Please overcome any hesitancy and get vaccinated.

With the aggressive COVID Delta variant, with the increasing risk of COVID in Sydney and with stupid people refusing to abide by the current NSW Health COVID precautions, the risk of COVID infection is very real.

I prefer you see your GP rather than being with lots of people in COVID vaccination HUB.

My secretaries (Kylee and Julie) and I are all fully vaccinated against COVID.

1 COVID-19 vaccine weekly safety report – 12-08-2021

2 Covid-19 during pregnancy linked with higher risk of preterm birth: Lancet study

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