NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now urging all pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The advice comes as hospitals like Vanderbilt begin to see a rise in unvaccinated moms-to-be getting seriously ill from the virus.
“In the last three weeks, we’ve admitted eight pregnant females to our ICU who are unvaccinated,” said Dr. Todd Rice, Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt. “The significant portion of them said ‘my doctor told me not to do it while I was pregnant.”
Rice says the hospital has even seen women lose their babies due to severe sickness from the virus. Rice attributes the spike in sickness, specifically among expectant mothers, to vaccine misinformation.
“These are my obstetrician colleagues in TN telling people ‘I don’t think you should get vaccinated because you’re pregnant’, said Rice. “A number of those, I think would have gotten vaccinated, had their doctors said ‘yes, you should get vaccinated while you’re pregnant.”
In the past, obstetricians have recommended against the COVID vaccine for pregnant patients. But now, Rice says there is more data to consider.
“They have more on trials of women that were pregnant and vaccine trials of women that were pregnant,” said Rice. “In addition to women who were pregnant and didn’t know it that got into the original trials of vaccines. They now have longer term data for those women that were vaccinated while pregnant.”
The CDC now says not only is the vaccine safe during pregnancy, but also while breastfeeding.
