MediSane

Dr. Carmel Harrington, the lead researcher for the study, was one of these parents. Her son unexpectedly and suddenly died as an infant 29 years ago. (...) Harrington explained what she was told about the cause of her child’s death. 

"Nobody could tell me. They just said it's a tragedy. But it was a tragedy that didn't sit well with my scientific brain.” 

Since then, she’s worked to find the cause of SIDS, both for herself and for the medical community as a whole. She went on to explain why this discovery is so important for parents whose babies suffered from SIDS. 

"These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault," she said.

I got fully vaccinated while pregnant. There was no hesitation. But I do know of 3 healthcare workers (a nurse, a pharmacist and a doctor) who were/are pregnant and did not get vaccinated. There was no way to convince them.

I'm fatigued now over the argument from the vaccine hesitant patients I have about how we don't have enough data or we 'rushed' this vaccine and should wait. Wait for what exactly? 30 years to feel safe about a vaccine for a deadly global pandemic? Am I hearing this correctly?

We have large scale trials now in NEJM. The latest, which is free access to all users, included 35 000 pregnant people. With no obvious safety signals. Of course, longer term data is required. But we have numerous documented cases that show that catching actual COVID while pregnant does carry high risks for complications. Thus, it is now a strong recommendation in the guidelines of many highly respected Western country obstetric societies for pregnant patients to get fully vaccinated. These are never lightly added to guidelines. They always go by the evidence. 1/3 of the entire world is now vaccinated with few complications. We're looking at 1 in a million severe complications, which is a common entity to all vaccines which many of the COVID vaccine hesitant have already had in childhood or for the flu each year. Versus the very high risks that catching delta strain COVID actually carries.

Again, where did everyone leave their common sense during this pandemic.

Head of obstetrics at one Australia hospital has now come out with statistics to convince everyone to get vaccinated.

Why vaccinate:

“It does not increase the risk of miscarriage, or abnormalities or pregnancy complications. It prevents severe disease, you coming to manage, you having your baby born early and you put into intensive care.

It is safe. When you look at the side-effects of women in pregnancy who have had vaccinations, they are less likely to get a fever than in the normal pregnant group. The immune protection response actually crosses the placenta to the baby. It provides protection to the baby.

For women who are breastfeeding, the vaccination response – not the vaccination – the vaccination response continues protection into the baby. These are very high risk of needing extreme premature births, due to the degree of infection."

What if you don't and catch COVID:

We know that in pregnancy that coronavirus infection means you’re five times more likely that you’re going to need to come to us... and when you do come to us...[it] is a one in three chance you’re going to need oxygen therapy, is a one in seven chance you’re going to be in intensive care, is a one in two chance you’re going to need emergency delivery of your baby, is a one in two chance of severe infection.

And there’s a one in four chance your baby will need to be born prematurely, twice as likely to have a stillbirth.