NEW ORLEANS — When the COVID Delta surge hit the area last fall, only 13 percent of pregnant women were vaccinated.
That was throughout the entire Ochsner Health System in Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
One doctor who sees the deadly toll COVID can take on mothers and their babies, is trying to change that statistic.
Dr. Jane Martin is an Ochsner OB-GYN who specializes in treating high-risk pregnancies. And in the last two pandemic years, she has seen pregnant patients with COVID go through heartbreak.
“We've lost mothers. Many women have lost their babies at varying stages of pregnancy. The risk of preterm delivery is higher with COVID. The risk of cesarean section is higher. We had many women deliver very, very early with their babies having lengthy long NICU stays,” said Dr. Martin, Ochsner Maternal-Fetal Physician.
That's because during pregnancy, the immune system naturally weakens. Dr. Martin was pregnant with her third daughter Romy when the vaccine came out. So, she combed through the first-hand, scientific studies then made the decision to get the shot. Ochsner posted it on social media hoping to encourage pregnant women to talk to their OB-GYNs about the vaccine. Overnight it went viral, worldwide.
“Thousands of comments. I had to stop reading them after a while. Some of them were very uplifting and supportive, but some of the people were commenting, ‘Yes, you are making a terrible decision. You're hurting your baby. How could you do this to your unborn child?’” she remembers.
So, she used the opportunity to have a louder voice, spreading the science, even the results of a study done at Ochsner during the Delta surge.
“That showed that unvaccinated women were at higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and ICU admission, stillbirth and maternal death," she said.
But today only 20-to-30 percent of pregnant women in the U.S. are vaccinated. Pregnant women still believe an old rumor that the expectant mother's immune system can't tell the difference between the spike protein in the vaccine and placenta.
“That's like saying you're going to drive through your neighborhood and you can't tell the difference between your house and your neighbor's house because they are both houses,” Dr. Martin used as an analogy.
So, Dr. Martin is educating again by letting people into her personal life. That unborn baby Romy, is now a year old and is healthy and normal.
“The vaccine has been shown time and time again, to not decrease infertility. There's no increase in miscarriage rate, birth defects, any bad outcomes in patients who have received the vaccine," she said.
Today, she recommends the vaccine to all of her pregnant patients.
And there is another benefit. Vaccinated mothers pass on the protective antibodies to their babies before they are born, and afterwards through breastfeeding.