{"id":518,"date":"2025-06-02T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeladvertising.com\/?p=518"},"modified":"2025-06-06T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T15:11:03","slug":"rfk-jr-says-healthy-pregnant-women-dont-need-covid-boosters-what-the-science-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeladvertising.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/02\/rfk-jr-says-healthy-pregnant-women-dont-need-covid-boosters-what-the-science-says\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. Says Healthy Pregnant Women Don\u2019t Need Covid Boosters. What the Science Says."},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re pregnant, healthy, and hearing mixed messages: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is not a scientist or doctor, says you don\u2019t need <\/a>the covid vaccine, but experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still put you in a high-risk group<\/a> of people who ought to receive boosters. The science is on the side of the shots.<\/p>\n

Pregnant women who contracted covid-19 were more likely to become severely ill and to be hospitalized than non-pregnant women of the same age and demographics, especially early in the covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

A meta-analysis<\/a> of 435 studies found that pregnant and recently pregnant women who were infected with the virus that causes covid were more likely to end up in intensive care units, be on invasive ventilation, and die than women who weren\u2019t pregnant but had a similar health profile. This was before covid vaccines were available.<\/p>\n

Neil Silverman<\/a>, a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and the director of the Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said he still sees more bad outcomes in pregnant patients who have covid. The risk of severe covid fluctuated as new variants arose and vaccinations became available, Silverman said, but the threat is still meaningful. \u201cNo matter what the politics say, the science is the science, and we know that, objectively, pregnant patients are at substantially increased risk of having complications,\u201d Silverman said.<\/p>\n

A request for comment regarding the scientific literature that supports covid vaccination for pregnant women sent to HHS\u2019 public affairs office elicited an unsigned email unrelated to the question. The office did not respond when asked for an on-the-record comment.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before joining the Trump administration, announced May 27 that covid vaccines would be removed from the CDC\u2019s immunization schedule for healthy pregnant women and healthy children. His announcement, made in a video posted on the social media platform X, blindsided CDC officials<\/a> and circumvented the agency\u2019s established, scientific processes for adding and removing shots from its recommended schedules, The Washington Post reported.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still much unknown about how covid affects a pregnant person. The physiological relationship between covid infections and mothers and fetuses at different stages of a pregnancy is complex, said Angela Rasmussen<\/a>, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n

The increased risk to pregnant patients comes in part because pregnancy changes the immune system, Rasmussen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is natural immune suppression so that the mother\u2019s body doesn\u2019t attack the developing fetus,\u201d Rasmussen said. \u201cWhile the mother does still have a functioning immune system, it\u2019s not functioning at full capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pregnant patients are more likely to get sick and have a harder time fighting off any infection as a result.<\/p>\n

In addition to changing how the immune system works, being pregnant also makes women five times as likely to have blood clots<\/a>. That risk is increased if they contract covid, said Sallie Permar<\/a>, chair of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine.<\/p>\n

The virus that causes covid can affect the vascular endothelium \u2014 specialized cells that line blood vessels and help with blood flow, Rasmussen said. In a healthy person, the endothelium helps prevent blood clots by producing chemicals that tweak the vascular system to keep it running. In a person infected with the covid virus, the balance is thrown off and the production of those molecules is disrupted, which research shows<\/a> can lead to blood clots or other blood disorders.<\/p>\n

Permar said that those clots can be especially dangerous to both pregnant women and fetuses. Inflammation and blood clots in the placenta<\/a> could be connected to an increased risk of stillbirth, especially from certain covid variants<\/a>, according to studies published in major medical journals as well as by the CDC.<\/p>\n

When the placenta is inflamed, it\u2019s harder for blood carrying oxygen and nutrients to get to the developing baby, said Mary Prahl<\/a>, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything is interrupting those functions \u2014 inflammation or clotting or differences in how the blood is flowing \u2014 that\u2019s really going to affect how the placenta is working and being able to allow the fetus to grow and develop appropriately,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It makes sense that we see the effects of covid in the placenta, Silverman said. \u201cThe placenta is nothing more than a hyper-specialized collection of blood vessels, so it is like a magnetic target for the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blood vessels in the placenta are smaller and may clot more easily than in the mother\u2019s circulatory system, he said.<\/p>\n

Permar said recent data suggests that pregnant women sick with covid still have a higher risk of pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, preterm birth, and miscarriage, even with existing immunity from previous infection or vaccination. Covid, she said, can still land women in the hospital with pregnancy complications.<\/p>\n

Prahl said the connection between stillbirth and covid may be changing given the immunity many people have developed from vaccination or prior infection<\/a>. It\u2019s an area in which she\u2019d like to see more research.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s already strong evidence<\/a> that both mRNA-based and non-mRNA covid vaccines are safe for pregnant women.<\/p>\n

Prahl co-authored a small, early study that found no adverse outcomes<\/a> and showed antibody protection persisted for both the mother and the baby after birth. \u201cWhat we learned very quickly is that pregnant individuals want answers and many of them want to be involved in research,\u201d she said. Later studies, including one published in the journal Nature Medicine showing that getting a booster in pregnancy cut newborn hospitalizations<\/a> in the first four months of life, backed up her team\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

Prahl expects more evidence will be available soon to support the benefits of mothers receiving a covid booster during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say, kind of behind the scenes, I\u2019m seeing a lot of this preliminary data,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She blames the delay in part on the Biden administration\u2019s scaling back of federal efforts to track covid. \u201cA lot of the surveillance of these data were pulled back,\u201d she said. The Trump administration is further cutting money<\/a> used to track covid.<\/p>\n

But because the vaccines give a pregnant woman\u2019s immune system a boost by increasing neutralizing antibodies, virologist Rasmussen is confident that getting one while pregnant makes it less likely a pregnant woman will end up in the hospital if she gets covid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will protect the pregnant person from more severe disease,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Getting a covid vaccine while pregnant also helps protect newborns after birth. Pregnant women who get vaccinated pass that protection to their young babies, who can\u2019t get their own shots until they are at least 6 months old.<\/p>\n

According to data<\/a> released by the CDC in 2024, nearly 90% of babies who had to be hospitalized with covid had mothers who didn\u2019t get the vaccine<\/a> while they were pregnant.<\/p>\n

As recently as April 2024, research showed that babies too young to be vaccinated had the highest covid hospitalization rate of any age group except people 75 and older.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s decision to remove the covid vaccine from the list of shots it recommends for pregnant women means insurance companies might no longer cover it. Pregnant women who want to get it anyway may have to pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to be that doctor who just says, \u2018Well, it\u2019s really important. You have to vaccinate yourself and your kids no matter what, even if you have to pay for it out-of-pocket,\u2019 because everyone has their own priorities and budgetary concerns, especially in the current economic climate,\u201d Silverman said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell a family that the vaccine is more important than feeding their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he and his colleagues will keep advising pregnant women to try to get the shots anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cNewborns will be completely naive to covid exposure,\u201d he said. \u201cVaccinating pregnant women to protect their newborns is still a valid reason to continue this effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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