The Australian Government has been trying to prevent misinformation about pregnant women and having the COVID-19 vaccination, with fears many women of childbearing age were not getting vaccinated.
Now research by NYU Grossman School of Medicine, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology yesterday, has found that women who receive a mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy pass high levels of antibodies to their babies.
The effectiveness of the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, the researchers say, lies in their ability to trigger the production of the right antibodies – blood proteins capable of protecting individuals from infection.
The study of 36 newborns, whose mothers received either the Pfizer–BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy, found that 100 per cent of the infants had protective antibodies at birth.
“Studies continue to reinforce the importance of vaccines during pregnancy and their power to protect two lives at once by preventing severe illness in both mothers and babies,” says Ashley S. Roman, MD, director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Silverman Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at NYU Langone Health, and one of the study’s principal investigators.
“If babies could be born with antibodies, it could protect them in the first several months of their lives, when they are most vulnerable.”
In Australia, 74.1% of people over the age of 16 have had at least one dose of vaccine on 22 September, but with children as yet ineligible for a vaccine, the findings are reassuring for expecting parents.
