Covid vaccine during pregnancy

[Eleano]

I couldn't find a recent thread so I'm posting a new one.

I'm 11 weeks pregnant and have had no encouragement from my midwife to get the Covid vaccine. I've booked it for tomorrow and wanted to get some opinions.

I got vaccinated for Covid a few times when everyone was being called for vaccination and have no issue with being vaccinated but I'm nervous now that I'm pregnant since it seems that most pregnant women don't get vaccinated due to fear and a lack of guidance.

I heard a few womens' midwives told them to avoid it since pregnant women weren't in the clinical trials and since the current variant isn't severe.

However, my husband's a teacher and brings Covid home about twice a year and I catch it every time and it makes me ill for about a week.

I'm the only pregnant woman I know in my social circle getting the vaccine. Am I doing the right thing?

This group has an agenda, it's just due diligence to criticise this source.

It my area it is advised pregnant women have the covid, flu & whooping cough vaccine

I'm truly fascinated by how these "professional epidemiologists" like @leafyygreens can spend such an inordinate amount of time, consistently and for months and months on the trot, policing MN for difffering perspective/opinion. Not sure whether to be impressed or not.

Anyway - broken records all around, here, but I still just think we need to look around with our own eyes, read widely if we want to, and make up your own minds. How strange how aversive that seems to some.
Much respect to all, and hope you're respectively having good Friday nights

I didn't realise there was a policy that women with jobs aren't allowed to post on MN

Another classic - you can't reply to the posters who are pointing out your posts do not make sense, and instead swerve onto irrelevant personal attacks.

The fact remains HARTs claims have never been backed up by robust evidence, and this is the case for the article you linked. I am disappointed people are still being taken in by this group, but at least they seem to be getting far less attention.

Posters have repeatedly explained to you that all evidence informing vaccine recommendations is publicly available, and you can choose to access this if you want to, however you must accept you will be unable to conduct evidence synthesis in the same robust way a team of expert researchers have done (repeatedly, independently, all over the globe).

broken records all around, here, but I still just think we need to look around with our own eyes, read widely if we want to, and make up your own minds. How strange how aversive that seems to some.

Well quite, just open your eyes @vinegarasacleaner :

-39 observational studies and 4 RCTS demonstrating vaccine safety & efficacy in pregnant women
-consensus opinion from public health bodies that pregnant women should be offered this vaccine
-consistent recommendations worldwide (europe, america, africa) to add this to vaccines offered in pregnancy

It's bonkers you won't acknowledge that claiming thousands of experts are either stupid or corrupt is a bit of a stretch - a conspiracy that would require agreement from goverments, research bodies etc worldwide?

I would say you need to think for yourself rather than just blindly repeating claims from groups like HART who been shown again and again to be pushing disinfo for profit.

@vinegarasacleaner

Explain to me exactly how Hart Group/Safer to Wait/Us for Them/Great Barrington etc are more trustworthy/better regulated/have secure peer reviewed backing/free from political bias - than consensus scientific opinion?
Or are they heavily critisised, continually debunked/make false claims and have strong political affiliations?
I mean even Sweden - who are lauded by many as some kind of anti everything utopia - have one of the highest vaccination rates in Europe.

@vinegarasacleaner

I'm truly fascinated by how these "professional epidemiologists" like @leafyygreens can spend such an inordinate amount of time, consistently and for months and months on the trot, policing MN for difffering perspective/opinion. Not sure whether to be impressed or not.

I didn't know "professional epidemiologists" weren't allowed to do that? Sorry it bothers you, though.

Anyway - broken records all around, here, but I still just think we need to look around with our own eyes, read widely if we want to, and make up your own minds. How strange how aversive that seems to some.

You've only brought up one source, and that one was dodgy. I hope you do read widely with the rest of your time. I'm not averse to your opinions, but if you give any seriously wrong ones to vulnerable posters, I'm likely to give my own.

Exactly. I mean who in their right minds would get their health info from the Koch brothers and dodgy US MAGA organisations. It's amazing that these people have managed to convince so many that we're being duped and they alone have the truth. 3 years of this nonsense does my head in.

Just read this... https://unherd.com/2023/11/moderna-is-spying-on-you/ - as @vinegarasacleaner - it doesn't take a giant Machiavellian conspiracy for bias to creep into debate - this has even made me wonder about some of the posts on this thread... (I fully expect the usual suspects to be back saying lots of mean things about UnHerd now...)

Continued ignoring of all the previous replies then @AreYouVeryAnti ?

No one is denying pharmaceutical companies have and continue to behave unethically.

You are ignoring all the evidence in front of you that is completely independent of these companies - replicated, independent studies, which have been reviewed independently by countries as they conduct their own analysis of who should be offered vaccines. Why aren't you replying to anyone?

For example ^ @AreYouVeryAnti

this has even made me wonder about some of the posts on this thread...

Except no one is making pointless blanket statements like "vaccines are wonderful! don't say bad things about moderna!" @AreYouVeryAnti

They're literally outlining and pointing you to the evidence - which you can access and read for yourself - which demonstrates why SARS-COV-2 vaccines are currently offered to pregnant women globally, and how this evidence comes from numerous independent streams that are nothing to do with the drug companies who developed them.

I don't get why you won't engage with these posts at all.

Because they think certain posters somehow ‘in’ with Big Pharma. It’s peak paranoia.
I think they actually are their own best advert against anti-science sentiments because it just comes across as deluded nonsense. They can’t find a decent, credible, non-biased publication or study to back their ‘views’. So they head for their fav right wing, libertarian news source while screeching ‘it’s all political and you’re all being played’.

I thought this was interesting - about the author of the Unherd article linked above. Published in 2019, so prior to anyone trying to claim he’s being vilified for ‘speaking bollocks ‘the truth’ about Covid.

”Fang, who has a history of possessing and distributing fake news and taking topless photos of himself…Fang also forgot to respond to a request for comment about why he did not adhere to standard journalistic practice before publication of the bombshell report. His reporting has been consistently laced with errors. While at ThinkProgress, Fang pushed a particularly bad strain of facts to argue that a former Goldman Sachs employee working for then Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) on the House Oversight Committee changed his name to hide his past at the influential investment bank. But the staffer said that he and his sister had changed their names to honor their Transylvanian heritage and "respect the last wish of his grandfather to carry on his mother's family name."
ThinkProgress updated the story five times to correct erroneous assertions. Calling subjects for comment is standard practice for competent professional journalists as is fact-checking”

So apparently this kind of shoddy journalism is “the real
truth” - rather than consensus opinion which at least makes an effort to follow standard practice and regulations.

Not right or wrong. Not going to debate that.

But for what it's worth. I was unvaccinated in my pregnancy. Got covid at 17 weeks. So mild I wouldn't have known, but I tested because a colleague was very poorly with it (she was vaccinated and not pregnant!). I got covid again after pregnancy and same again , so mild, I thought it was just a mild cold (my colds are usually much worse!). My husband had it too this time. I can only assume baby did too but he never had any symptoms, so antibodies must have really helped him!

AreYouVeryAnti

Considering pregnant women aren't allowed soft cheese and aspirin I think careful scrutiny of this vaccine is warranted. It does not use the same underlying mechanism as the flu jab or other conventional vaccines”

Our daughter was advised to take aspirin during pregnancy.
This vaccine has been scrutinised, by pharmaceutical experts who know what they’re talking about.

It's interesting the article makes a big deal about moderna highlighting Russell Brand and Elon Musk as notable people who disseminate fake claims about vaccines on their platforms.

They're both rich, powerful men who do indeed use their wide reach to spread conspiracy theories and generally pander to certain political affiliations (which includes the anti-vaccine narrative)- this is a fact rather than a nasty smear campaign.

I’d also say they are men who supposedly champion free speech until someone does or says something they don’t like : and then it’s time for powerful lawyers to silence their critics. Free speech for me, but not for thee.

Interesting - thanks for posting.

I find it interesting/informative to notice who does and doesn't want to control what people read.

Trashing a group/writer rather than refuting point by point is an extremely well worn technique round here (and all over social media). But in any case, what's wrong with people reading things and making up their own minds? I wouldn't want to stop people reading anything, really, unless it's direct incitement to violence, etc.
I find that people, left to their own devices and given access to a wide range of information without censorship, tend to be pretty sensible and insightful.

I appreciate people wouldn't want point by point refutations, etc., here - who has time for that?! But don't stop people reading/thinking about ANY sources - including drug company info, official guidelines, critiques of official guidelines, people's specific experiences/accounts, EVERYTHING. I never see people saying "DON'T POST NHS GUIDELINES" around here, even if they themselves think they may contain inherent biases.

SO MANY posters have suggested you read the swathes of evidence (39 observational studies and 4 RCTs) that have gone into informing who should be vaccinated, or the summaries of this evidence that have been compiled by various countries around the world.

But in any case, what's wrong with people reading things and making up their own minds?
No one is telling you not read anything - they are suggesting the literal opposite.

Again, I have no idea why you are claiming "censorship". It's just abundantly clear at this point, that when you follow a claim about these vaccines from posts like these it leads nowhere or is not backed up by robust evidence (generally a statistic, sentence, or study taken out of context). It only takes a second to copy a fake claim, but can take several hours to disprove. Normally the poster has swiftly moved on to the next one by this point.

As said before, I suggest you read the evidence in front of you rather than blindly believing what groups like HART (or one of their many other iterations) are telling you @vinegarasacleaner

See my point above - it takes a second to post a fake claim about vaccines. Of course someone wouldn't bother replying to all the posts explaining why it is not true, because it's far quicker and more effective to post a new fake claim.

Posters have repeatedly explained that the evidence behind these recommendations comes from numerous, independent sources (I won't labour the point again because it's all my posts which you ignore), and countries worldwide have all indepedently reviewed this evidence and come to the same conclusion - it is safer for pregnant women and their babies to have this vaccination than not.

@henlee I am absolutely not blindly believing HART. And I have read a lot of the evidence you cite. Look at it all, if you can.

I'm referring to the endless posts saying "oh no, don't read HART/PANDATA/Norman Fenton/whoever. They're bad"

No one has said "they're bad"

They've pointed out that these sources have spent the entire pandemic pushing fake claims about COVID and vaccines, with specific examples, and explained specifically why the claims you are repeating from them on this thread are not true.

There must be hundreds of threads on HART at this point, the nonsense they've come out with, and how they are profiting from it.

The funniest posts are the ones suggesting the HART people (etc) are doing it "for profit". Many of those people have lost their livelihoods standing up for what they believe. Now, it's fine to think they're wrong. But it's hilarious to tell people not to take them seriously because they stand to make money. If you want to make money and gain high status, you stick by the status quo and will generally be rewarded.