World Health Organization advises pregnant women not take Moderna vaccine
Officials with the World Health Organization are advising that pregnant women should not get the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine after new research shows that clinical trials of the vaccine were not yet performed on pregnant women.
Officials said pregnant women should only get the Moderna vaccine if they are health care workers or if they have pre-existing medical conditions that put them at a higher risk.
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"So I think there's a lack of data, but many times in times of crisis and medicine, other situations like that, we are forced to make decisions, even when the data is imperfect," said Dr. Diana Racusin, a maternal medicine specialist at UT Health. "I wish we had not excluded pregnant women from these trials, but that is the data that we have."
Dr. Racusin said there's much to weigh out as we await more research and clinical trials. Pfizer has published studies that did involve pregnant women who didn't know they were actually pregnant at the time they received their vaccinations. Their pregnancies and births, according to Pfizer, were all normal.
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Dr. Racusin said she understands the fear and reluctance, but expectant mothers should not forget this virus can be deadly and it impacts people in many different ways.
"I feel like I talked about this so many times during the day because people are so scared," she said. "And the numbers are so high right now. What I tell my patients is unfortunately right now it seems that the issue isn't if you're going to get COVID. It's when you're going to get COVID."
