Mothers who get vaccinated against COVID-19 while pregnant are likely to pass on protection against the virus to their newborn babies, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. The public health agency recommended people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or looking to conceive get vaccinated.
Scientists studied 379 infants under the age of six months at 20 different children’s hospitals across 17 states from July 2021 to January 2022.
Of the 176 babies who were hospitalized with COVID-19, 84% of them were born to mothers who did not get vaccinated during their pregnancy, the study determined. Researchers also found that 88% of babies admitted to intensive care units with COVID-19 were born to mothers who were not vaccinated. The one infant who died during the study was born to an unvaccinated mother.ย
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“The bottom line is that maternal vaccination is a really important way to help protect these young ones,” chief of the CDC’s Infant Outcomes Monitoring Research and Prevention Branch Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman said Tuesday.ย
She urged pregnant people to get vaccinated, as vaccines against COVID-19 have not yet been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for children younger than 5.
