United States: About 90 percent of infants admitted to the hospital with covid received the disease from their mothers who did not receive the vaccine during pregnancy, the CDC found.
The findings are published in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
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It also showed that those under the age of seven years had times higher covid hospitalization rates than any other age group, excluding those over 75 years.
The study analyzed infant health data between October 2022 and April 2024 in 12 states and stressed the urgent need for vaccination of pregnant individuals, californiahealthline.org reported.
It also reflects what physicians anecdotally have said for over three years – people are afraid of Covid vaccines because misinformation still prevails.
Out of the study, 1,470 infants with covid were severe enough to require hospitalization, and the report shows that severe outcomes in the infants were “common”.
Though the study also included newborns admitted at birth, approximately 5 percent of COVID-19-positive infants required ICU care, and almost 2 percent needed mechanical ventilation.
According to Neil Silverman, 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, “These aren’t necessarily high-risk, ill newborns. These are just regular, full-term, healthy newborn kids who happen to get covid and wind up on a ventilator in the hospital,” californiahealthline.org reported.
Vaccination and children
Children below six years cannot receive covid vaccination until they are at least six months of age. That means there is a ‘big gap’ when the infant is most susceptible, Silverman said, adding that in the meanwhile, the fetus is exposed to the risk of some diseases.
However, The continued circulation and promotion of vaccine misinformation has made pregnant patients of Silverman skeptical.
According to Silverman, “The most frustrating response that I get from folks is that they need to do more research before they think about getting the covid vaccine,” californiahealthline.org reported.
“We have dozens and dozens of studies showing the safety of the mRNA vaccine. I don’t know how much more research we can provide to skeptics.”