Covid boosters safe during pregnancy, UW Medicine study concludes
Researchers at the University of Washington say that Covid-19 booster shots appear to be effective and safe during pregnancy.
"When you vaccinate a pregnant individual, she makes protection and passes it to her baby via cord blood and then breast milk in the postpartum period, so you're getting two protections for one shot," said Dr. Linda Eckert, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UW.
UW Medicine conducted a study that included more than 17,000 people. The results of the study were recently published. Read more about the study here.
Boosters that target the omicron strains became available last week.
Dr. Eckert says that pregnant people, and anyone who's gone at least two months since their last booster, should get the updated shots. She says the accumulation of data since the beginning of the pandemic points to the safety of the vaccines.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued a new advisory encouraging pregnant people to get vaccinated against Covid.
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John O'Brien
Producer
John O’Brien is a KUOW newsroom producer. He works with the Morning Edition and All Things Considered teams to schedule, record, and edit interviews and stories on a variety of topics, from politics and public health to arts and culture. He learned to make radio in 2006 as an intern on KUOW’s The Conversation and is a former host of KUOW's Speakers Forum.
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