Local Doctor Talks About Safety of COVID Vaccines for Pregnant Women
Dr. Analene Pentopoulos of The Dalles makes a point of encouraging her patients who are pregnant or want to get pregnant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Why? “Pregnant women who get COVID do a lot worse than women who aren’t pregnant,” said Pentopoulos, an obstetrician/gynecologist, or “baby doctor.”
She recounted one terrible period awhile ago when two pregnant patients from her clinic that had COVID both ended up in ICU in Portland in the same weekend. Both recovered.
Dr. Analene Pentopoulos
It’s safe for women to get vaccinated during pregnancy, said Pentopoulos, who has practiced in The Dalles since 2006.
“We do have a fair number of patients that got the COVID vaccine during pregnancy and delivered and we haven’t had anyone who’s had a negative pregnancy outcome since getting the COVID vaccine,” she said.
The country’s two largest societies of physicians who take care of pregnant women, the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, have recommended that all pregnant women get the vaccine.
A study of women who got the vaccine during pregnancy found they had the same pregnancy outcomes as women who weren’t vaccinated, she said.
“There’s no difference in risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, growth restrictions, pre-term birth, or congenital anomalies,” Pentopoulos said.
“We haven’t seen anything that gives us pause to say you shouldn’t get this vaccine when you’re pregnant,” she said. “And there definitely isn’t any data to say if you’re trying to get pregnant you shouldn’t get the vaccine.”
As to the myth that the vaccine will impact fertility, or the ability to get pregnant, she said, “Nothing has shown that to be the case. Claims of infertility are unfounded and have no scientific evident supporting them.”
“There is no mechanism for it to impact fertility,” she said of the vaccines.
She also noted that the vaccine doesn’t cause COVID and it doesn’t alter your DNA. “None of these are live viruses,” she said of the COVID vaccines.
The chickenpox vaccine is a live virus, for example. You can get a mild case of chickenpox from it. “But most vaccines are not live viruses. You may feel sick because your body is mounting an immune response, but you’re not getting the disease.”
“I think the biggest thing to know is that as healthcare providers we wouldn’t be recommending something if we didn’t think it was in people’s best interests. The whole clinic is vaccinated because we want to make certain that we remain healthy and don’t get it and can continue to provide care for our patients.”
It’s also safe to get the vaccine while breastfeeding, since a vaccinated nursing mother passes that protection along to the baby. “There’s no reason not to get it while lactating,” she said.
(For more information, please visit COVID-19 Vaccine in Oregon, contact North Central Public Health District at (541) 506-2600, visit us on the web at www.ncphd.org or find us on Facebook.)