Unvaccinated pregnant women are at increased risk

Getting the COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant inevitably scares many pregnant women. But as many studies and experts have shown, everything indicates that the vaccine has a protective effect on both women and unborn babies and that the real danger is COVID-19.

Louise Leduc
Press

According to a study published this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, pregnant women with COVID-19 are two to three times more likely to have a hemorrhage, premature delivery, or an underweight baby (but no increased risk of miscarriage).

Another study (from July) published in The Lancet She also concluded that a diagnosis of COVID-19 was associated with a markedly increased risk of prematurity and even more of very prematurity.

Another study from mid-November, this one from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, reports a more than twice the risk of stillborn babies (although this happens very rarely).

A study published earlier this week by the U.S. Center for Disease Control concludes that vaccination during pregnancy, on the other hand, is not associated with preterm deliveries or underweight babies.

But pandemic or not, preterm deliveries and hemorrhages are commonplace, right?

Certainly, answers the D^r Christos Karatzios, specialist in pediatric infectious disease at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, but “the placentas full of clots that we see are characteristic of COVID-19”, and they are therefore added to the usual complications outside the pandemic.

He is aware of the fears of women, who fear possible malformations in their babies or fear that the vaccine will trigger contractions. “Some women are even afraid to take Tylenol when they are pregnant,” he notes, noting that some doctors sometimes fuel these fears themselves.

The D^r Karatzios emphasizes the importance of vaccination. “I saw at the Montreal Children’s Hospital a baby born to an unvaccinated woman whose placenta was just full of clots. The baby will have irreversible brain damage. Many such cases are also reported around the world. ”

From the outset, the immune system of pregnant women is weakened, he recalls, “and this is the reason why we also recommend that they be vaccinated against influenza and against whooping cough”.

Newborns to protect

By being vaccinated against COVID-19, the woman protects herself and she will also transmit antibodies to the unborn baby through the umbilical cord and then through breastfeeding, if this is possible. Especially since in the first two months of their life, babies are extremely fragile, recalls the D^r Karatzios, and if the mother is not vaccinated, “the baby will have no protection against COVID-19”.

The D^r Karatzios also notes that no serious study has reported sterility problems linked to the vaccine and that in fact, thousands of vaccinated women have become pregnant and have given birth to children.

Insofar as Omicron “is at least as contagious as measles”, specifies in addition the D^r Karatzios, the time is unfortunately not to go and show the newborn to the relatives. Grandparents, uncles, aunts have to wait until the baby is a little more robust.

In the United States, authorities estimate that three in five pregnant women are not vaccinated. If we do not collect data on the subject in Quebec, at the CHU Sainte-Justine, the D^D Diane Francœur, obstetrician-gynecologist, estimates that half of the women followed in this hospital are not vaccinated.

To these, the D^D Francœur says “to shut themselves up at home and not to send their children to daycare, which is far from easy if they are at work” or “if they live in a small apartment”.

Like the D^r Karatzios, the D^D Francœur believes that we now have “the necessary hindsight to reassure pregnant women” that vaccines are safe.

However, she regularly cares for pregnant women with COVID-19 who are very ill. She mentions, for example, the recent case of a woman in Sherbrooke suffering from COVID-19 “in very poor condition who had to do an emergency cesarean”.

A colleague from Sainte-Justine, the D^D Isabelle Boucoiran, underlines for her that “if a woman is in respiratory distress, she will not be able to grow well. [lors de l’accouchement]. On Monday I had a woman with COVID-19 who could just give birth while sitting ”.

The D^D Boucoiran observes that the vaccine itself does not cross the placenta, “but the antibodies do. So it can protect babies during the first months of their life ”.

The virologist Anne Gatignol, professor of microbiology at McGill University, also wishes to reassure pregnant women. “RNA vaccines are very safe for pregnant women and no risks have been reported, either in experiments in mice or during follow-up of vaccinated women. Many [femmes vaccinées] have already given birth without having observed the slightest problem. ”

“On the other hand, the risk associated with COVID-19 seems to increase in pregnant women, so the benefit of vaccination is even greater for them. ”

With the collaboration of Lila Dussault, Press