Vaccination during pregnancy immunises the unborn: report

Women getting vaccinated completely during their pregnancy would pass the immunity to the children they bore at that time, a study done by US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found. The new report is the first evidence-based finding of its kind, The Guardian reported.

The study states that if the baby contracts the virus after it is born, the disease is likely to become mild and might not need hospitalisation.

It found that pregnant mothers who had two doses of Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, their babies had a much lower risk of hospitalisation if contracted by the virus in the initial six months. Vaccination during pregnancy proved 61 efficient in providing guard against infections in the babies.

CDC told the media that the result is so because the babies carry their mother's antibodies. When people receive an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine during pregnancy, the antibodies are also formed in umbilical cord blood, which means the antibodies have transferred to the developing child, Dr Dana Meaney-Delman, chief of infant outcomes monitoring research and prevention branch in CDC, said. She said they had already known about the antibody transfer but had not received relevant data proving the antibodies are potential enough to protect the baby.

The study subjected 379 infants under six months, and 176 of them were infected by Covid-19, while 203 were admitted for other issues.

But the rate of protection increased to 80 per cent if the mother is vaccinated after 21 weeks of pregnancy or 14 days before delivery. The efficiency declined to 32 per cent if the mothers took jabs earlier during the pregnancy. However, the study did not include the effectiveness of booster jabs or vaccinated mothers before pregnancy.

The study further found that babies of mothers vaccinated earlier or before pregnancy contracted the severe disease. In one case, a baby succumbed to the virus in which the mother wasn't vaccinated at all. Dana cited these to reiterate that maternal vaccination is essential.

CDC warns that contracting Covid-19 during pregnancy might increase the risk of preterm birth, stillbirth and other complications. They suggest women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant or might become pregnant in the future should get vaccinated.