It found that almost 90% of babies hospitalized with COVID-19 had moms who didn’t receive the vaccine while pregnant recent data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The results appear within the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Babies too young to be vaccinated had the best COVID hospitalization rates of all age groups except those over 75.
The study examined medical data for infants from October 2022 to April 2024 in 12 states and underscores the critical importance of vaccinating pregnant people. It also reflects what doctors have been reporting anecdotally for greater than three years – that folks are still skeptical about COVID vaccines due to persistent misinformation.
Of the 1,470 infants who were sick enough to be hospitalized as a result of COVID, severe outcomes were “frequent,” in response to the report. Excluding newborns hospitalized at birth, about one in five infants hospitalized with COVID required intensive care and nearly one in 20 required a ventilator.
“These are not necessarily sick, high-risk newborns. “These are normal, full-term, healthy newborns who happen to get COVID and end up on a ventilator in the hospital,” he said Neil SilvermanProfessor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of the Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Program on the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Babies cannot receive the COVID vaccine until they’re at the very least 6 months old. That leaves open a “huge window of time” when infants are most in danger, Silverman said. Vaccination of pregnant women so her pass on the antibodies Passing it on to your newborns is an efficient technique to protect babies during this time. Vaccination while pregnant also protects pregnant women from serious illnesses.
But persistent misinformation about vaccines online has led to skepticism amongst Silverman's pregnant patients.
“The most frustrating response I get from people is that they need to do more research before thinking about getting the COVID vaccine,” Silverman said. “We have dozens and dozens of studies showing the safety of the mRNA vaccine. I don’t know how much more research we can offer skeptics.”
According to the report, the typical age of the over 1,000 babies hospitalized with COVID was just two months. Nine of the infants died.
South Carolina pediatrician Deborah greenhouse said she plans to share the study with families she serves. “There's absolutely a portion of the population that looks at this and says, 'Hey, wow, I should get this vaccine.' It could protect my baby,” she said.
Greenhouse believes the new data could highlight the risk of foregoing the vaccine when she speaks to families.
“I think being able to actually show them numbers on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and ventilator rates might be helpful in convincing some parents,” Greenhouse said. “These things are a big deal.”
Often, Greenhouse waits to be notified that a person is pregnant before displaying the updated COVID vaccination. Now she is rethinking that strategy. “As pediatricians, we have mothers in our practice who are pregnant, and we have the opportunity to intervene and educate them and make them realize how important this is,” she said.
Doctors can encourage vaccination by making it as simple and straightforward as possible, Silverman said. He encouraged his colleagues to offer the vaccinations in their offices rather than sending patients to pharmacies or other providers.
“We probably lose 30 to 40% of vaccination opportunities if someone has to leave the office to get vaccinated,” Silverman said.
But offering COVID vaccinations at their clinics is leaving some doctors with a problem difficult calculation. They have difficulty predicting what number of patients might be excited by the vaccine and should not give you the option to return all excess doses. Many providers can't afford to lose money on doses that go unused, but they still have to order enough to vaccinate vulnerable patients who want the shot.
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