It’s safe for pregnant women, who are already at risk for a more severe case of COVID-19, to be vaccinated against the virus, a top doctor from the region’s largest health care provider said Friday.
“To this point, there are no concerns that we’re seeing among pregnant women to say, ‘Hey, there’s a higher risk in the vaccine during pregnancy.’ That’s really reassuring,” said Dr. Sean Esplin, Intermountain Healthcare’s medical director of women’s health, during a virtual news conference.
Although vaccine trials did not seek to include pregnant women, Esplin said more than 50,000 nationwide have been inoculated against the virus and are being followed closely to make sure there is no increased risk of complications or other problems.
There haven’t been problems with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in pregnant women, he said. Earlier this week, Utah and the rest of the country paused the use of the single-dose vaccine after six women developed rare but severe blot clots.
Esplin said women are more likely to develop blood clots, but pointed out it is not yet clear if they resulted from the vaccine. If the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration recommend resuming the vaccine’s use, the doctor said he would be comfortable with patients getting it again.
Women who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the past three weeks should watch for signs of blood clots — unusual headaches, shortness of breath, chest pains, or swelling, redness or tenderness in one leg — and contact their health care provider if they experience those symptoms, he said.
The sooner pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19, the more antibodies they are able to pass on to their babies, he said. His vaccination advice is something Esplin said he shared with his own daughter when she asked whether she should get a shot in her first trimester of pregnancy.
“Now, I’m pausing. Now I’m the dad. I’m a new grandpa, right? I’m like, what do I do? I said, ‘Go get it. Go get it. You’re going to be fine.’ That’s my own recommendation to my own family, is that the safest thing to do is to get the vaccine,” the doctor said.
Esplin said pregnant women typically are hit harder by viral infections like the flu, and the coronavirus is no different.
“If you’re pregnant and you get the infection, you have a higher chance of needing help breathing because your lungs can be more affected. You might have a higher chance of being admitted to the hospital or the ICU, and even a higher chance of having a death because of this,” he said.
That makes it especially important for pregnant women to take steps to avoid COVID-19, Esplin said, particularly if they have other medical conditions that put them at a higher risk such as diabetes, high blood pressure or being overweight.
“Those things in conjunction with being pregnant and having COVID really are a recipe for having a high risk of a bad outcome,” he said.
But given the ways to avoid the virus, including wearing masks, social distancing and practicing good hygiene, in addition to vaccinations, have made him “more comfortable that the risk to the baby is maybe not as high as we were worried about initially. I think we have learned there are good ways to prevent this.”
It’s been a month since Yándary Chatwin, who is 21 weeks pregnant, received her final shot of the two-dose Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Chatwin, who works for the Salt Lake City School District as a spokeswoman, said she talked over her initial concerns with her doctor and her husband before deciding to go ahead.
What worried her? “Just the unknowns, with a new vaccine. I want to do what’s best for my family and be a good member of society, and I think getting vaccinated is part of that. But I also know that anything I ingest into my body obviously affects my baby. I was obviously concerned for him,” Chatwin said.
She said she decided to follow her doctor’s advice to wait until her second trimester to get the vaccine, and the shots left her with a sore arm, flu-like symptoms and migraine headaches, as well as increased the nausea and tiredness she was already dealing with during her pregnancy, but “nothing too severe,”
Chatwin said she knows her decision isn’t going to be right for everyone.
“I have friends who are pregnant who are choosing to wait before they get vaccinated. But anyone who has concerns, I’ve been happy to talk about my experience because I believe in the science behind the vaccine,” she said. “I believe vaccinating members of society at large is how we’re going to get out of this pandemic.”
Her only regret, Chatwin said, is that she isn’t still nursing her toddler son and sharing her antibodies through breast milk.
Friday’s COVID-19 numbers in Utah
Friday, the Utah Department of Health reported 463 new COVID-19 cases and two additional deaths from the virus. The total number of cases in the state since the start of the pandemic more than a year ago has now reached 392,096.
Utah has administered a total of 1,852,460 vaccine doses, a daily increase of 43,636.
The rolling seven-day average for positive tests is 393 per day, and 7,879 Utahns have taken 17,826 tests for the coronavirus since Thursday. That put the rolling seven-day average for percent positivity of tests at 3.8% when all results are included, and at 7.6% when multiple results by an individual are excluded.
Currently, 159 people are hospitalized with the virus in Utah, and total hospitalizations are at 15,879.
Utah’s death toll from COVID-19 is at 2,164 lives lost, including two reported Friday: a Salt Lake County woman between the ages of 65 and 84 who was not hospitalized at the time of her death, and a Weber County man, 45-64, who was hospitalized when he died.