HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Delta variant of COVID-19 is proving especially dangerous to pregnant women.
Pregnancy was already a risk factor for developing severe COVID-19 symptoms; according to a CDC study released in November, unvaccinated pregnant individuals were 70 percent more likely to die from COVID-19, as well as having higher risk of getting admitted into the ICU and being put on a ventilator or an ECMO machine.
“Pregnancy alone kind of makes us in an immunocompromised state and so it makes us more susceptible to infection. Women who are pregnant who get the flu, they get sicker. So it’s just like any other virus,” said Dr. Chavone Momon-Nelson, an OB-GYN at UPMC.
The variant has been correlated with a surge of cases since it arrived in the U.S. last spring, as well as a surge in severe complications for unvaccinated pregnant people, according to a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Nearly two dozen pregnant women died of COVID-19 in August alone.
The CDC issued an urgent warning for pregnant people to get the shot, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends the vaccine and booster for all pregnant and lactating women.
Being vaccinated can also offer some protection to newborns who are breastfeeding, as antibodies can pass through mothers’ milk.
“[The vaccine is important] in terms not only of protecting their health, but of protecting the health of their newborn as well,” said Robert Ferguson, chief policy officer for the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF), which runs the Women’s Health Activist Movement (WHAMglobal) to improve maternal and child health outcomes.
Despite the risks of not being vaccinated, pregnant women are only about half as likely as the average American to get the vaccine. Only 34.8 percent of pregnant women are vaccinated, versus 61.1 percent of all Americans, according to the CDC.
Dr. Momon-Nelson of UPMC said many of her pregnant patients last spring were eager to get the vaccine.
“Now I’m not really seeing any of my patients who are pregnant being vaccinated. That to me is alarming,” she said, crediting the drop in vaccinations to misinformation spread online. “There’s so much distrust and so much question. Unfortunately that is really harming patients and harming my pregnant patients, too.”