About 30 percent of pregnant women in the United States remain unvaccinated, according to CDC estimates
“We know that pregnant people are at increased risk when it comes to Covid-19, but they absolutely shouldn’t and don’t have to die from it,” said Dr. Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice and health equity and quality at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Kaiser researchers found that among women who were pregnant or planning to become pregnant: 60 percent believed that pregnant women should not receive the vaccine, or were unsure if this was true; and about the same number believed, or were unsure, whether the vaccines had caused infertility. While just 16 percent said they outright believed the false infertility claim, another 44 percent said they weren’t sure it was true.
Torrents of misinformation during the pandemic have repeatedly disrupted public health campaigns. Past spikes in untruths have raised doubts about vaccines, masks and the seriousness of the virus, undermining best practices for controlling the spread of the coronavirus, health experts said, noting misinformation was a key factor in the reluctance of vaccines. dr. Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, has demanded information from tech companies about the main sources of disinformation about Covid-19.
One of the reasons misinformation about the vaccines and pregnancy has received so much attention, experts say, is that the earliest clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccines excluded pregnant women. The lack of research data prompted the CDC and the World Health Organization to initially issue several recommendations to pregnant women, although they did not explicitly prohibit or encourage the immunization of pregnant women. Other health organizations chose to wait for more safety data from later studies before making an official recommendation for pregnant women to get vaccinated.
“Unfortunately, in the meantime, the information gap has been filled with a lot of misinformation, particularly on social media, and that has been an uphill battle to combat,” said Dr. Zahn. “While we’ve made a lot of progress in the past year with uptake among pregnant women, a lot of time has also been lost.”
For years, researchers have pointed to the spread of misinformation about vaccines on social networks as a factor in vaccine hesitancy and lower rates of Covid-19 vaccine adoption in more conservative states.
“The root of this problem is trust, or rather it is a lack of trust,” said Dr. Sell. “Trusted doctors should help women understand the importance of vaccination against Covid and its safety. But if people don’t trust the authorities, don’t have a provider to turn to, or generally don’t have a place to get good information, this misinformation can fill that void.”