What do you do if a family member is an anti-vaxxer?

[BrutusMcDogface]

I’m so angry with my sibling for putting my parents at risk. So very, very angry.

WWYD? Avoid him? Avoid them?!

Can’t believe he’s being so selfish!

[quote Mangomammy]@EmmaOvary
There have been no long term studies on any covid vaccine. No one can say for sure it won’t cause long term issues for mother/ baby. The advise is simply that there is no “evidence” that the vaccine can harm your baby, but that is because there is no long term data to get this evidence from.[/quote]
There is equally no long term evidence on the impact of SARS-COV-2 on pregnant mothers or infection in babies in utero

Short term we can see it is certainly safer for mothers and babies to be vaccinated, which is why organisations like the RCOG recommend it

@Mangomammy of course. However it is clear that Covid can be very dangerous in pregnancy, hence the advice. It's not ideal, none of this is. I don't envy pregnant women making a decision on this.

[quote EmmaOvary]@Mangomammy of course. However it is clear that Covid can be very dangerous in pregnancy, hence the advice. It's not ideal, none of this is. I don't envy pregnant women making a decision on this. [/quote]
Definitely.

This was a really informative thread I saw on twitter from a pregnant woman who was hesitant and the resources she looked at to help make her decision to get vaccinated:

twitter.com/Lindsey_Pike/status/1417183457457889285

@EmmaOvary thank you! Really appreciate it. It saddens me that the country/world has become so divided. It feels like its "us and them" and I hate it. We all make our decisions based on our own circumstances.

Pregnant women do have weakened immune systems.. That's fact. I believe the risks are still quite minimal. However the news/headlines make it sound awful x

@MondieBee

How is he putting your parents at so much risk? Presumably they're double jabbed. He's at the most risk? What's the point of anyone being vaccinated if even the vaccinated are at enormous risk if they're near anyone who isn't?

This is a genuine question. I'm not anti vax but if your parents are now protected against serious disease, whats the problem beyond your brothers own safety? I feel I'm missing something

Because vaccination also reduces an individual's likelihood of passing Covid on , in the first place.

So further reduction of risk

Seriously, I am all for choice but why do you continuously ignore this?

You do nothing! By all means reduce your interaction with your sibling if you feel the need too, but you can't enforce that same stance on behalf of your parents, that's their choice to make not yours.

@Spotthedog91 I wasnt going to bother replying to someone who makes decisions on personal acquaintance rather than facts - but you are pregnant. I know a number of health care professionals. I have heard several stories of pregnant women having emergency caesareans before being putting on a ventilator. Some dont make it off again. Those stories were from the first wave, Delta is more infectious and with more open more pregnant women are catching covid and being admitted.

If you catch covid around the time of birth you are more likely to have a stillbirth. www.rcog.org.uk/en/news/rcog-responds-to-new-covid-19-and-pregnancy-study/

Your decision not be vaccinated puts your unborn child at greater risk. If you are determined not be vaccinated then you owe it to your child to take the greatest care to avoid situations where you might catch covid, including avoiding other unvaccinated people.

@alreadytaken thanks but it's ok.. I've rang both my local maternity wards and they have confirmed nobody in my city has lost their baby or gone into labour early because of covid... Although there have been cases around the country, so of course that means guidance is to take the vaccine.

Also the term "more likely to have stillbirth" is a strong statement to make and also scaremongering.. Why not say "you are at increased risk compared to those non-vaccinated, but the risk is still incredibly low".

@alreadytaken

Instead of scaremongering re pregnant women and Covid, would you like to comment on the actual figures below? Seems pretty low-risk to me, but maybe you have some insider information?

From the BBC:

Public Health England data suggests about 51,724 pregnant women have received one Covid vaccine in England so far. Of these, around 20,648 have had their second dose.
This is out of approximately 606,500 pregnant women in England in 2020-21, based on estimates from GP records.

	In the last three months, 171 pregnant women were admitted to hospital with Covid symptoms
	Some 98% were unvaccinated and just three had received a single dose of the vaccine
	About one in three pregnant women in hospital with Covid-19 developed pneumonia
	About one in seven needed intensive care
	About one in five admitted to hospital with Covid go on to give birth prematurely and their likelihood of having a caesarean section increases

www.bbc.com/news/health-58014779

Realistically, a pregnant woman is far more likely to be harmed in the car driving to a hospital appointment than from Covid.

@blue12345 I don't disagree with the figures from your post, but important to put into context that vaccination reduces the risk of those harms, hence why bodies like RCOG recommend it

Women are also more likely to harmed by a car crash than 'flu when pregnant but we still recommend vaccination.

I have decided that anyone who doesn't want to be near me because of my status isn't worth my time.

I cannot have the vaccine and it's amazing how many have shoved me in the anti vaccine camp. I've had people trying to convince me that I should just suck it up and have it. They've had theirs to supposedly help protect those like me who cannot have it. They've had theirs to supposedly help protect those who despite having both still have no anti bodies to it.

Instead I have asked people regardless of vaccine status to test or stay away if they are ill with anything. I wouldn't really know who has had it or not as I really don't care.

Where was all this concern for the vulnerable prior to 2019? Nowhere. People were still dragging themselves out with whatever contagious illness they had. Sending their children to school despite vulnerable children being in their classroom. Arguing about how it's unfair their child cannot have nuts in school etc.

@blue12345 you're my hero! Lol. Thank you... These are the statistics that need posting! I'm so fed up of people basically saying if something happened to me or my baby I have myself to blame and should never forgive myself. Covid has bought out a really cruel side to people..

@leafyygreens I understand the recommendation for the flu vaccine during pregnancy, I got the flu shot in pregnancy myself.

However, the flu vaccines are well-established and the Covid vaccines are new and different. Therefore the risks of a Covid to pregnant women seem to be massively overstated. With very scary headlines, at a time when women are vulnerable.

[quote blue12345]@leafyygreens I understand the recommendation for the flu vaccine during pregnancy, I got the flu shot in pregnancy myself.

However, the flu vaccines are well-established and the Covid vaccines are new and different. Therefore the risks of a Covid to pregnant women seem to be massively overstated. With very scary headlines, at a time when women are vulnerable. [/quote]
@blue12345

It's a totally personal decision for every woman to make.

But women are also vulnerable to this messaging that the vaccines "are new and different" and this is a reason to not take them up. The same argument can be posed for COVID - that we don't know the long term impact on mum and baby. In contrast, we know a huge amount about why the vaccines are safe in pregnancy.

This thread was posted which I think is a really good overview by someone and how they made their decision: twitter.com/Lindsey_Pike/status/1417183457457889285

And I'd urge everyone considering whether to go ahead or not to look at the RCOG decision making aid:
twitter.com/RCObsGyn/status/1400755720740642816

[quote leafyygreens]@blue12345 I don't disagree with the figures from your post, but important to put into context that vaccination reduces the risk of those harms, hence why bodies like RCOG recommend it

Women are also more likely to harmed by a car crash than 'flu when pregnant but we still recommend vaccination.[/quote]
Yes, and uptake of the flu vaccine in pregnancy is usually less than 50% iirc. Vaccine hesitancy during pregnancy isn’t a new thing.

@leafyygreens

The thread you linked to starts with another terrifying statement.

'Unvaccinated pregnant women are ending up in ICU with COVID'

This is true, but as per stats in BBC article linked below, it amounts to about 26 pregnant women.

Which is minuscule. We also don't know whether they had underlying health issues that led to them needing ICU.

It is an incredibly personal decision. But the facts are not being shared and therefore it is much harder to get the information you need to make a truly balanced decision.

[quote blue12345]@leafyygreens

The thread you linked to starts with another terrifying statement.

'Unvaccinated pregnant women are ending up in ICU with COVID'

This is true, but as per stats in BBC article linked below, it amounts to about 26 pregnant women.

Which is minuscule. We also don't know whether they had underlying health issues that led to them needing ICU.

It is an incredibly personal decision. But the facts are not being shared and therefore it is much harder to get the information you need to make a truly balanced decision. [/quote]
I'd urge you to read the entire thread, it's from an ex-scientist working in policy, so certainly not someone swayed by scare stories in the media. Her personal choice to start with that statement no?

Unvaccinated pregnant women are ending up in ICU with COVID, and vaccine worries are contributing to this. As someone 24 weeks preggo & awaiting my 2nd jab, I wanted to share some resources that helped my decision making in case helpful for others in similar situ 1/

Caveats: I am not a medical professional, or an expert! But I have professional skills in finding and interpreting reliable evidence and I trust medics and researchers to give me accurate info for me & Bump 2/

TLDR: No option is risk free but on balance having Pfizer or Moderna, as recommended by the NHS, is less risky for mums/parents and babies than potentially getting Covid (esp in 3rd trimester) 3/

etc, with a description of the resources she used to make the decision

@leafyygreens I've already read the full thread, as it's been linked a lot over the last few days.

This statement stood out.

'no evidence of harm to pregnancies'

With everything changing every day re Covid, mask guidelines in the USA being reinstated as Covid now thought to be spread equally between vaccinated and unvaccinated/ Booster shots now needed etc, additional evidence could come out about pregnant women?

How could anyone be sure about any of this?

@blue12345 as an aside, what makes you distrust the advice from the NHS and the RCOG who recommend vaccination in pregnancy?

I completely understand suspicion towards the media, the government, policymakers who twist and backtrack and generally have proven themselves to be incompetent. But RCOGs number one priority is the safety of mums and their babies, and I'd personally take their guidance on this seriously.

...Covid now thought to be spread equally between vaccinated and unvaccinated

agh @blue12345 not to detract from the discussion but this is not true.

Vaccination prevents infection in the vast majority of people. Vaccinated people cannot pass COVID on. In the minority of vaccinated people who do become infected, one study from CDC found that whilst these people showed a reduction in transmission, it did not reach statistical significance. This is far from definitive and experts have explained further research in larger samples in needed.

@leafyygreens The CDC in the US have reinstated the mask mandate due to the most recent research showing the amount of viral load in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated is identical. Fauci has been on a media tour over the last week emphasising this point.

thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/565831-fauci-amount-of-virus-in-breakthrough-delta-cases-almost-identical

What we learned that's new, John, in answer to your question, is that when you look at the level of virus in the nasopharynx of people who are vaccinated who get breakthrough infections, it's really quite high and equivalent to the level of virus in the nasopharynx of unvaccinated people who get infected," Fauci said.

I understand that there has been lots of discussion surrounding the Indian study they have based their decision on as being inaccurate. However, this just highlights the confusion I was talking about, everything keeps changing.

Vaccinated people cannot pass COVID on

Do you have a link for this?

Was literally just reading the article:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/inews.co.uk/news/science/vaccinated-people-infected-delta-variant-contagious-unvaccinated-1128915/amp

[quote userperuser]Vaccinated people cannot pass COVID on

Do you have a link for this?

Was literally just reading the article:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/inews.co.uk/news/science/vaccinated-people-infected-delta-variant-contagious-unvaccinated-1128915/amp[/quote]
Vaccination prevents infection in the vast majority of people.
Vaccinated Non-infected people cannot pass COVID on. In the minority of vaccinated people who do become infected, one study from CDC found that whilst these people showed a reduction in transmission, it did not reach statistical significance. This is far from definitive and experts have explained further research in larger samples in needed.

You've taken my post out of context. Yup that's a typo but it should be obvious when you read the paragraph in it's entirety. Hopefully the edit there makes it clear.

@leafyygreens To answer your question re the RCOG and the NHS, I honestly don't believe that anyone knows what is going on with Covid. Everything is an unknown, therefore it is bizarre to see everyone being so definitive about something that is not a certainty.

As I said earlier in the thread, if I were pregnant and the hospitals were overwhelmed with very ill pregnant a Covid patients, I would take any vaccine going. But it doesn't currently seem as if the risk is as great as they are making it out to be.