{"id":42274,"date":"2021-10-08T08:28:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T14:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=42274"},"modified":"2025-03-03T10:16:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T17:16:34","slug":"urgent-warning-for-pregnant-women-get-your-covid-19-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/urgent-warning-for-pregnant-women-get-your-covid-19-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"Urgent warning for pregnant women: Get your COVID-19 vaccines."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source: Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Katie McCrimmon and Kati Blocker<\/p>\n

Health experts with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)\u00a0have issued an urgent alert, strongly recommending that all pregnant and breastfeeding people should get vaccines to prevent COVID-19 as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the newest data are showing how dangerous COVID-19 can be during pregnancy, and only about 31% of those who are pregnant have thus far received COVID-19 vaccines.<\/a><\/p>\n

The August death toll among pregnant women with COVID-19 marked a grim milestone \u2014\u00a0the highest number of deaths tied to pregnancy and COVID-19 during any month since the pandemic began.<\/p>\n

The September death toll could be even worse once health experts tally the data on pregnancy and COVID-19. That\u2019s because the highly transmissible delta variant has sparked a dangerous new wave of COVID-19 infections since June and health experts now know that unvaccinated pregnant people are at high risk for becoming critically ill or dying if they get the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that pregnancy is associated with severe COVID-19 and neonatal outcomes,\u201d Dr. Meaney Delman told vaccine experts during a CDC advisory committee hearing on Sept. 22<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome children will grow up without their mothers. Please get vaccinated,\u201d Delman said.<\/p>\n

Delman is the CDC\u2019s lead expert on vaccines and pregnancy, including immunizations to protect against COVID-19 during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPregnant women with COVID-19 have a higher risk of maternal death, preeclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth than pregnant women without COVID-19,\u201d Delman said.<\/p>\n

CDC experts don\u2019t have the vaccine status of all of the pregnant people who have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic, but data from the COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET)<\/a> indicate that approximately 97% of pregnant people hospitalized (either for illness or for labor and delivery) with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection were unvaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cPregnant women with COVID-19 have statistically-significant, higher odds of ICU (Intensive Care Unit) admission, ventilation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO, a life-support system that pumps blood outside of the body to a heart-lung machine to keep people alive) compared with non-pregnant women of reproductive age with COVID-19,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to suffering themselves, the babies born to women with COVID-19 also are at greater risk of suffering health problems and are more likely to need care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units.<\/a> More newborns also are testing positive for COVID-19 now than during earlier waves of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

CDC and UCHealth experts recommend COVID-19 vaccines for everyone who qualifies, and especially to protect against COVID-19 during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery pregnant woman should get the COVID-19 vaccine. It\u2019s safe and I recommend getting it,\u201d said Dr. Anna Euser, a UCHealth maternal-fetal medicine specialist who recommends COVID-19 vaccines for all of her pregnant patients and also received her own COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible to protect herself and her newborn daughter.<\/p>\n

Here is the newest information related to the CDC\u2019s urgent alert on pregnancy and COVID-19:<\/p>\n