Pregnant women and vaccine

[bloomety]

Am I right in thinking the vaccine won't be safe for pregnant women? They'd have needed to wait for the babies to be born to check there were no ill effects to the child.

Women of childbearing age are low risk anyway unless other issues (as per everyone!), the pregnancy is pretty much irrelevant

Yes but pregnant women are in the at vulnerable group.

pregnant women have 70% increased risk of death

Pregnant women are treated as vulnerable because they don't know how coronavirus impacts unborn babies (if at all) there is no ethical way of studying this either so all they can do is observe outcomes for women who both have and have not had covid while pregnant.

Vaccines crossing the placenta can be a good thing (like whooping cough) but again that needs more research and time.

Given that pregnancy is temporary, at this stage it's safer to not give them vaccine to pregnant women. As more research is done that might change.

They are low risk for catching it with a moderate risk (clinically vulnerable) from it as, like all strains of flu etc, being pregnant can make your body react differently.

I think there will be lots of similar posts about a wide varety of cohorts. The only way to know what is best is to have all cohort data available to you and to do a compete RR analysis!

Which is happening, in real time, all the time!

There will be a lost today taht i a month may change because variables have changed. It will be called another of Boris's U Turns and people will continue to be angry and afraid of changes to thinks they don't understand.

But the data will still be being collected, collated, analysed and used! Procedures and advice will continue to change...

@Twizbe Yes I'm happy with that. I am 12 weeks and told my DH I wouldn't be taking it if it was offered to me. He was surprised.

@bloomety

[https://www.popsci.com/story/health/pregnant-women-covid-19-risks/ pregnant women have 70% increased risk of death]

This article states that the risk of them getting very bad covid is very low to start with.

[quote bloomety]@Twizbe Yes I'm happy with that. I am 12 weeks and told my DH I wouldn't be taking it if it was offered to me. He was surprised.[/quote]
Not take whooping Cough or covid vaccine?

Why not wait until we actually have more knowledge about the vaccine and it's signed off and ready to be given?

No one needs to be making hypothetical decisons when we don't have all the facts

@bloomety

[https://www.popsci.com/story/health/pregnant-women-covid-19-risks/ pregnant women have 70% increased risk of death]

Stop it! Full headline and sub header

Pregnant women are at an increased risk of severe COVID-19, but there’s no need to panic
The overall odds are still quite low.

70 percent increased risk of death and that initial risk is really low. It's called Relative Risk and, depending on the comparison rate, may only add 1 person per thousand, per hundred thousand.

@Twizbe covid vaccine

@satnighttakeaway yes I know, I was just thinking about it and deduced that they can't have tested it on pregnant women. I just wondered what others thought.

@CuriousaboutSamphire Yeah, they don't go on to say the actual risk. 70% is scary unless you put it in context, e.g. your risk went from 1% to 1.7%

I was just thinking about it and deduced that they can't have tested it on pregnant women. I just wondered what others thought. That would not get through ethics. Same as testing on children. It carries too great a risk for the individual. When it is done there has to be an overriding health issue - Thalidomide made that very, very clear.

We all just need to remember to take a deep breath and look for the detail whenever we see such articles. There will be hundreds more of them....

@CuriousaboutSamphire When it is done there has to be an overriding health issue - Thalidomide made that very, very clear.

Yes thats what I said to my DH. They thought that was safe.

I won’t be having it until baby is out and I’m only 8 weeks now. I’d rather isolate myself off until then. Luckily I can as I’m currently at home x

I thought pregnant women were only classed as vulnerable because they don't yet know the risks to the baby? So I wouldn't worry.

Honestly at this point people should be considering the possible additional risk of Covid before getting pregnant and if they aren't comfortable with it they should be delaying getting pregnant rather than expecting special treatment. In the absence of other conditions people of childbearing age are at extremely low risk and are unlikely to be offered the vaccine in the first several batches if at all.

Special treatment @StatisticalSense? Not wanting a vaccine is wanting special treatment?

StatisticalSense you sound very bitter. Incredibly condescending and just nasty, not sure what you have against pregnant women but maybe get that sorted before dishing out “advice”.

[quote bloomety]**@CuriousaboutSamphire* When it is done there has to be an overriding health issue - Thalidomide made that very, very clear.*

Yes thats what I said to my DH. They thought that was safe.[/quote]
And it is for everybody except a human foetus at a certain stage of gestation.

It's still used in Medicine today. As are many teratogenic medications - just not during pregnancy.

The idea would be (I'd expect) that eventually, when it's been rolled out to other groups who aren't pregnant, such as the elderly, CEV and health service/care/education workers, women will get vaccinated prior to conception, so checking for MMR/DTP status, taking folic acid, getting vaccinated against Covid becomes the usual state of affairs for planned pregnancies.

I am due in April. I'd decided I wouldn't take the vaccine of offered (while pregnant) for all the reasons mentioned above. But having looked at the volumes likely to be available and the roll out order, I don't think it would even be offered to me before April. This doesn't bother me, it's more that I don't believe it is going to be a decision I have to make as there will be many more people in need of it before me.