Pregnant women should be included in coronavirus vaccine trials, experts have urged, as those in priority groups wrestle with whether or not to have the jab.
Doctors are considering emerging evidence that pregnant women may face greater risks from Covid-19, although they are not at present a priority group.
Professor Lucy Chappell, spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), said that it was not asking for this status to change but that it would discuss any risk with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
DAUK’s Dr Ellen Welch said:
This is a very personal decision, for me it was important to have the vaccine in pregnancy
In pregnancy there is very little safety data for any medications&for something this new,there is clearly no long term data.However there is no current evidence of harm. Whereas there is plenty of evidence of the harm covid can do in pregnancy
for me the risks of either ending up on icu while pregnant, or having long covid with 2 small children clearly outweighed the minimal risks of having a new vaccine.
Pregnant women safely have the flu vaccine every yearFind out more- watch the MacDonald Obstetric Medicine Webinar on the topic https://www.obstetricmedic.org.uk/moms-webinar-archive/
Read the RCOG leaflet https://www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/2021-01-12-covid-19-vaccine-info-sheet.pdf
The full article can be accessed here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pregnant-women-should-be-included-in-covid-19-vaccine-trials-n23ndqjv6
