COVID Vaccine in pregnancy - to have or not to have? Post Reply

[Rsatterthwaite]

Hi everyone. I'm back and forth on this. My mum thinks wait because there isn't enough research to show the vaccine doesn't affect the baby. I also overheard a nurse tell another pregnant patient they would for sure wait themselves. Generally I am very pro vaccine but I can't help but feel reservations. What have others decided?

[iusepina]

I wouldn't risk, and wait after birth

[Sw17mumof2]

You will get polarised views on this. The previous poster said she/he would wait. I, on the other hand, would not as I wouldn't want to risk catching Covid whilst pregnant, especially with the new variant running around. If you were to get severely will there would be a number of treatments you would need to undertake and the dilemma about how this would impact the baby would be similar. I would also be concerned about the potential to become severely ill considering our immune system is somewhat down when we are pregnant.

But again, your choice and you may get numerous other posters also saying they would wait. My sister is a doctor (pediatrician) and we are both on the view they would not allow the vaccine it if the data showed reasons for concerns.

[claphammomma]

I would have it done myself but only with Pfizer - there’s no reason not to have it. My sister in law had it recently and she’s pregnant. In America pregnant women have been having it since it came out in Jan - I don’t know why it’s been different here. After having big issues during pregnancy myself years ago, I wouldn’t want to take any risks with covid around which can complicate pregnancies, especially late on. If you’ve had the flu and whooping cough vaccines, which I’m sure you have like other pregnant women do, there’s no reason to be fearful of the covid one, which can only pass on antibodies to your baby, which has to be a good thing :)

All the best with your decision though!

[barus]

Hi, I am in second trimester and i just got my two pfizer doses. The reasons why some doctors do not recommend it or would leave the choice to you without giving advice is because pregnant women were not involved in clinical trials which is considered the gold standard for clinical decisions. This is always the case with any medicine hence drugs only available years laters to pregnant women. And that’s why doctors now don’t want to give advice as actually they cant really give advice because the cant guarantee the outcome.

I have personally decided to take pfizer vaccine because even though there is no clinical trial data, in may, the time Ilooked up research already 100k pregnant women have been vaccinated without any safety concern. These women are monitorod as part of real world data research so you would actually know if there are any major concerns - similar to blod clots with Az, real world data showed there is an increased risk. Secondly, pfizer is an mRNA drug which is a targeted drug (as opposed to eg AZ) which means it only impacts the part of your body where it needs to do, and doesnt not interfere with other parts like genes, hence it is considered safe to pregnant women because the drug is not transferred to your baby. And lastly as others said, if you actually get covid especially in trimester 3, it could have serious side affects both on you and your baby.

So what doctors do when they make a decision is that they weight the risks and benefits and decide accordingly, i personally think there is much higher benefit then actual risk.

Of course this is just my view, your body your decision so just do what makes you comfortable

[Mumof3Balham]

As everyone has said there are polarised views. Personally I wouldn’t trust anybody’s views. I would do some research. As your mum says this is still a trial vaccine. Not just Covid but MRNA vaccines are new too. None of the trials included pregnant women and we have only been vaccinating those of child rearing age since spring this year so the data is very sparse. If you look at the USA Waers reporting system (reports adverse effects on ALL vaccines) there are now nearly 600 reported miscarriages. These may or may not be due to vaccine as still early days. But also check out your personal risk of Covid. If you are under 40 it’s minuscule. And then do your own risk assessment. Your risk not only of catching Covid, but then of getting really ill. Vs the risk of a trial drug. And make your decision.

[KatherineHepburn]

Hi satterthwaite,

The best place to go for updated guidance in pregnancy is the RCOG (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists) - https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-r ... pregnancy/