Unvaccinated women who got COVID while pregnant were at higher risk of stillbirths and more likely to be admitted to the ICU or die. Yet their best protection — the vaccine — sat largely untouched, buried under doubt and disinformation. (From propublica)
A dizzying and vague series of advisories led to confusion and delayed vaccinations. When the COVID-19 vaccines were first made available in December 2020, the CDC said health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities should be prioritized, but the shots were not explicitly recommended for pregnant people. Instead, the agency said on its webpage for vaccines and pregnancy that pregnant health care workers “may choose to be vaccinated.
Once again, pregnant people were put in the precarious position of receiving ambiguous and inconsistent recommendations. In May 2021, the CDC reiterated that pregnant people faced an increased risk of getting severely ill from COVID-19, but the language surrounding the vaccine — “If you are pregnant, you can receive a COVID-19 vaccine” — was noncommittal.
Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, a perinatologist and chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, shared the daunting task of making vaccine recommendations for pregnant people as part of COVID-19 task forces for two leading organizations, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
But it wasn’t until Aug. 11, eight months after the first vaccine was administered, that the CDC issued its formal recommendation that pregnant and breastfeeding people get vaccinated. That information was sent in by fewer than three dozen health departments, and those estimates don’t include states like Mississippi, which in September reported 72 COVID-19-related stillbirths since the start of the pandemic, nearly double what the state would have expected, according to data from the Mississippi State Department of Health. Preliminary state data shows total stillbirths increased there in 2020 then dipped in 2021, but were still higher than pre-pandemic numbers.
No one, she said, told her of the risks. Doctors, the CDC and health officials, she continued, aren’t doing enough to inform people. Even now, well into the pandemic’s third year, the message still isn’t getting through. They waited until she was five months along to announce her pregnancy at Thanksgiving. The next day, Black Friday, they bought a high chair, a tummy time mat and pink onesies.
She delivered at 23 weeks. Butcher didn’t know she had COVID-19 until they tested her at the hospital. A lab report later revealed extensive damage to the placenta. Even before the pandemic, almost a quarter of all stillbirths may have been preventable. The stillbirth crisis has simmered silently in the U.S., claiming the lives of more than 20,000 babies annually. But parents often suffer alone, overwhelmed by grief and guilt.
Amid the devastation of the pandemic, Heerema-McKenney sees a glimmer of hope. The antibodies from the vaccine have been shown to transfer through the placenta. That immunity in the womb, research shows, reduces the risk of the youngest infants being hospitalized with COVID-19. She continues to encourage pregnant patients to get vaccinated and boosted. If not for them, for their baby.
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