Vaccines and pregnancy

 An unplanned Facebook post about Pregnancy, Breastfeeding and COVID-19 vaccinations

I am not sure this will end up being proven by statistics but I think there is a pregnancy boom out there. Two or three new pregnant patients a week is unheard of in my practise even if compared to my baby delivering days. Many of these newly pregnant women delayed getting pregnant until they had two COVID-19 vaccines and although I understand their line of thinking, I am glad they received their vaccines in the late spring and summer. The delta variant is nasty and it preys on folks who are immunocompromised. Many people may not be aware that pregnancy induces an immunocompromised state. The body's immune responses are damped down during pregnancy and for good reason. The fetus has it's own unique make up and, more specifically, it's own unique proteins. If the pregnant mother continued with a non-pregnant immune response during pregnancy, her immune system would attack the fetus's proteins putting the life of the fetus at risk. COVID thrives in this state of damped down immune responses. Pregnant women who become infected with COVID-19 have a much greater chance of developing serious illness, becoming hospitalized, being admitted to the ICU and dying of the virus. What comes to mind is the very recent story of a Saskatchewan man whose pregnant wife contracted COVID-19 and was just transferred to an ICU hundreds of miles from home in oder to be place on ECMO which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. An ECMO machine is similar to the heart-lung by-pass machine used in open-heart surgery. It pumps and oxygenates a patient's blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs to rest. It's a bypass machine. If a person with COVID needs their blood to be oxygenated by a machine outside of her body, that means that her lungs are so damaged that not even a ventilator can help. This husband and father knew what his wife and unborn baby's chances of survival were. He spoke about the fact that he could not be at her bedside If she died and that her death would mean the death of their child. He knew that her chances of dying were almost 40 percent and that if she survived, the likelihood of long term chronic lung issues and long haul symptoms were also high. In pregnancy, the risk of hospitalization after COVID-19 infection is 10 times greater than in the non-pregnant person. https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-pregnancy-risk-icu-hospitalization-1.6176742 To put it in other terms, you are 15 % more likely to develop serious illness requiring hospitalization if you are pregnant and infected with COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccination is strongly recommended during pregnancy (regardless of trimester), breastfeeding or trying to conceive. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been proven to be safe in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. In a study of over 35,000 pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, no serious adverse reactions occurred. An Ontario study showed similar findings. https://www.bornontario.ca/en/whats-happening/resources/Documents/BORN-COVID-19-Vaccination-During-Pregnancy-in-Ontario-Report-2---FINAL.pdf. New evidence shows that mRNA vaccines do not transfer into breast milk. But, COVID-19 antibodies produced as a result of being vaccinated can transfer through breast milk potentially providing protection to the breastfed infant against COVID-19 infection. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778766 And, just to reiterate what I have stated in several posts, Public Health Ontario reports that there is no evidence of an association between COVID-19 vaccination and female or male fertility. https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/vaccines/2021/09/covid-19-vaccines-fertility.pdf?sc_lang=en. As Ontario re-opens, as we head into the winter months and being to gather more indoors and with the upcoming Christmas season ( two month away folks), individuals who have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are at much greater risk of infection and once infected, unvaccinated people have a seven-fold higher risk of symptomatic COVID-19 disease, a 25-fold higher risk of being in the hospital and a 60-fold higher risk of being in the ICU compared to the fully vaccinated. Pregnancy increases the risk even further. Please, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding and not yet vaccinated, get vaccinated. Your life and the life of your babe may depend on it. Serious stuff.....but backed up by good science and research. Get fully vaccinated. Anne-Marie Please share widely!!

For non-Facebook users, you can find this post here:

https://braceletofhope.blogspot.com/