COVID-19 Vaccination Guidance for Pregnant Women

I would like to now update you on COVID-19 vaccination

in pregnancy. Next slide.

It is very clear now, as I'll show you in a moment,

that there are severe adverse outcomes for mother

and baby during COVID-19 infection.

Therefore, it is extremely important for pregnant women

and women planning to get pregnant to get vaccinated.

Next slide.

Let's look at these adverse events that I mentioned a moment ago.

From this CDC MMWR from over a year ago,

if you look at an analysis of about 400,000 women

and look at the risk ratio of things like intensive care admission,

invasive ventilation, excercoporial membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, or death,

they all have an increased risk ratio.

Next slide.

If you look at total numbers,

total number of cases of pregnant women with COVID-19

from January 2020 to August 2021,

there have been about 110,000 cases,

about 19,000 hospitalizations,

and 131 deaths.

Indeed, COVID-19 in pregnancy is serious.

Next slide.

Let's take a look at some of those risk factors

which increase the possibility and probability of severe illness.

One is age, 25 years of age and older,

occupation, pre-pregnancy obesity, and chronic diseases like lung disease,

hypertension, and pre-gestational diabetes mellitus.

Next slide.

What about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women?

In over 35,000 participants that were followed in the v-safe,

there were no obvious safety signals among pregnant women who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

Next slide.

And if you look at the immunogenicity in pregnant and lactating women,

you see potent antibody and T cell responses,

as well as cross-reactive immune response against a number of variants.

Next slide.

If you look then at breast milk,

another advantage of getting a pregnant woman vaccinated

is that when that woman breastfeeds,

it passes by passive immunization.

A specific IgA and IgG antibodies in breast milk

that was seen in a study with a six-week follow-up period.

Again,

antibodies found in breast milk show strong neutralization of virus,

protecting your newborn baby.

Next slide.

And so, if you look at the strong statement of 23 leading organizations

who strongly urge all pregnant individuals,

as well as recently pregnant,

planning to become pregnant,

or lactating and other eligible individuals to be vaccinated,

the bottom line,

get vaccinated.

Back to you, Jeff.

Wonderful.