At least 200 pregnant people have died of COVID-19, including 22 in August alone; nearly 23,000 have been hospitalized. Newborns are suffering too. The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported links between infection during pregnancy and preterm birth, and according to the CDC, babies born to patients with COVID-19 are at increased risk of admission to the neonatal intensive-care unit.
So why aren’t more expectant mothers getting shots that could be lifesaving for both them and their future children? Many assume that all unvaccinated people are conspiracy-minded anti-vaxxers, but as my colleague Ed Yong has written, the reasons for not getting COVID-19 shots are more complicated than that. Pregnancy adds another layer of complexity.
The vaccine-skeptical women I spoke with told me that they believe the pandemic is real and that they are pro-science, but they were also overwhelmingly concerned about their own and their baby’s safety because of what they saw as a dearth of research on long-term outcomes.
Given the high stakes of protecting their unborn child, and amid an often confusing information landscape, many opted for what felt safe, rather than what was safe.
