Yahoo News Explains: COVID vaccines and pregnant women

The World Health Organization recently put out a statement advising pregnant women not to get the COVID-19 vaccine, unless they are at high risk of exposure. Yet this stands in contrast to what U.S. organizations like the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains.

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KAVITA PATEL: The World Health Organization basically put out a statement that said that while they acknowledge that women who are pregnant could be at a higher risk of severe COVID, they did not feel that there was enough data available to support endorsing the recommendation that all pregnant or breastfeeding women receive the vaccine. If you dive down into further details, what they really strikingly point out is that we do not have data, which is true. The trials that have been run around the world were not designed to enroll pregnant women. We do know pregnant women were enrolled because some people enrolled in the trial and then found out they were pregnant after receiving the placebo or the vaccine. But it's a very small number. There has not been any significant incidences in those people who did receive the vaccine, but it's not enough data to make a statement.

This stands a bit in contrast with where the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Society, and the American Academy of Pediatrics in the United States have landed, where they highly encourage every pregnant or breastfeeding woman, or woman thinking of becoming pregnant and concerned, to go first talk to their doctors, talk about the concerns they have, and overall think about getting a vaccine. Most of my colleagues who practice in these settings have been trying to encourage breastfeeding and pregnant women to receive the vaccine. And that's certainly-- I know the World Health Organization's statement might create confusion, but I think, for the practical advice, it's go talk to your doctor. Don't necessarily make one decision or another without that conversation.

The mission of the World Health Organization is not to act as a medical/clinical/scientific body, unlike some of the academies or colleges which actually do look at the evidence and make recommendations for clinical guidance. The World Health Organization really does try to help to identify public health threats, deal with them on the ground in countries. And this global cooperation between vaccines would not have been possible in some part without the support of the World Health Organization for countries that don't even have the funding to try to subsidize or do the research on vaccines. So it's not shocking that the World Health Organization, being a global kind of organization representing everybody, is trying to just remain as conservative as possible by pointing back to the data, which is absolutely the right thing to do.

But I do feel like the point on top of the World Health Organization's statement should be, please talk to your doctor. Not all situations are the same. And don't take their statement as any sign that they are concerned about the safety for pregnant or breastfeeding women. They simply state the evidence is not there, which is true.