Health experts urge pregnant women to get vaccinated for COVID-19 right away

CDC urges COVID-19 vaccinations for pregnant women amid delta surge

After seeing disturbing numbers of unvaccinated pregnant women become seriously ill with COVID-19, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging expecting mothers to get vaccinated.

SEATTLE - Health experts are recommending people who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant to get vaccinated right away.

The number of pregnant women getting infected with Covid-19 is rising, according to the CDC, and only 23 percent of women have gotten at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

"CDC encourages all pregnant people or people who are thinking about becoming pregnant and those breastfeeding to get vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. "The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people."

A new CDC analysis of current data from the v-safe pregnancy registry assessed vaccination early in pregnancy and did not find an increased risk of miscarriage among nearly 2,500 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Miscarriage typically occurs in about 11-16% of pregnancies, and this study found miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were around 13%, similar to the expected rate of miscarriage in the general population.

"We need to change the narrative and more pregnant women need to get vaccinated," said Rue Khosa, a registered nurse practitioner and founder of the Perfect Push.

Khosa gave birth to a baby boy on July 30. She said a day later on July 31, she received her Covid-19 vaccine.

"If I had had as much information, or if the Delta variant had been as prevalent at the time that I was pregnant, I probably would’ve gotten the vaccine," said Khosa.

Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf is a Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at UW Medicine. She said research in Washington State has shown that about 10 percent of pregnant women develop severe disease or were hospitalized when infected with Covid-19.

"I recommend that a pregnant woman be vaccinated with any of the COVID-19 vaccines absolutely as early as she possibly can if she’s not currently vaccinated," said Dr. Adams Waldorf. "The data is now absolutely overwhelming that COVID-19 vaccines are safe in pregnancy and that COVID-19 in pregnancy is a very dangerous disease."

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