In the United Kingdom, officials have been urging pregnant women not to delay getting their COVID vaccine or booster in a government campaign, according to BBC.
The UK Obstetric Surveillance System has found that mover than 96% of pregnant women hospitalized with COVID symptoms from May 2021 to October 2021 were unvaccinated.
The officials said the campaign will share testimonies of pregnant women who have had their vaccine on radio and social media.
The UK government said the vaccines were safe and had no impact on fertility.
In December, the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said pregnant women are on the priority list for the vaccine, as they were at increased risk of severe COVID illness.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said at least one in five pregnant women hospitalized with the virus needed to be delivered pre-term to help them recover, and one in five of their babies needed care in the neonatal unit, per BBC.
The UK has been offering the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine to pregnant women since April 2021. The DHSC said around 84,000 pregnant women have received one dose, while more than 80,000 have received two doses.
A recent Yale co-led study, reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), added new evidence supporting the safety of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.
Dr. Jen Jardine, Obstetric Registrar, Medical Statistician, and Researcher, UK, who is seven months pregnant and has had her booster shot, said, “Both as a doctor and pregnant mother myself, we can now be very confident that the Covid-19 vaccinations provide the best possible protection for you and your unborn child against this virus.
“I would strongly call on all pregnant women like me, if you haven’t had the vaccine yet, to either speak to your GP or midwife if you still have questions and then book right away today,” she added.
Prof. Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser to the DHSC, said, “Getting a Covid-19 vaccine is one of the most important things a pregnant woman can do this year to keep herself and her baby safe from this virus as possible.”
“We have extensive evidence now to show that the vaccines are safe and that the risks posed by Covid-19 are far greater,” added Chappell, who is an NIHR Research Professor in Obstetrics at King’s College London. The story was first published on BBC.
