Their prerogatives had hitherto been essentially restricted to pregnant women and newborn babies.
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The skills of midwives are expanding. They will now be able to vaccinate almost all minors, whereas their prerogatives were until then essentially limited to pregnant women and newborns, according to a decree published Thursday, August 18 in the Official Journal. As with nurses and pharmacists, midwives had already obtained greater opportunities for vaccination in recent months.
In the spring, the midwives had thus obtained the right to administer to pregnant women and newborns, as well as their immediate surroundings, all the vaccines provided for in the vaccination schedule. From now on, these prerogatives extend to all “minors according to the recommendations of the vaccination schedule in force”details the decree.
This text takes note of the recommendations of the High Authority for Health, which has come out in favor of such an extension, in order to ensure continuity in care from birth to adolescence. Midwives will not be able to vaccinate immunocompromised minors when it comes to a live vaccine that works from an attenuated version of the microbe. This is for example the case of the MMR vaccine (Measles Mumps Rubella).
Thursday’s decree also expanded other skills of midwives in vaccination. In pregnant women, they can now vaccinate against rabies, shingles or yellow fever. Again, the new measure excludes the administration of live attenuated vaccines to immunocompromised women. They include those for yellow fever and shingles.