Doctors urge COVID vaccine as multiple pregnant women are hospitalized in Charlotte

As intensive care units see an “unprecedented” number of pregnant women on ventilators battling COVID-19, Novant Health doctors are urgently asking expectant mothers to get vaccinated.

The highly contagious delta variant is driving the high rate of severe disease in pregnant women, Novant doctors told reporters Friday morning.

Their plea for COVID shots come just days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for pregnant women, based on mounting safety data. Women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant or who might become pregnant should all get vaccinated, the CDC said.

“If they’re not vaccinated, they’re really putting themselves at far greater risk for a myriad of consequences — some of which will be impactful to their unborn children,” said Dr. Navin Bhojwani, physician executive for Novant Health Women & Children’s Health Institute.

“The fetus is dependent on the respiratory function of the mom,” Bhojwani said about the risk of early delivery. “If the mom, if her lungs aren’t working, that limits what baby gets.”

Some studies have found that vaccinated pregnant women also protect their babies by building antibodies against the coronavirus, according to the CDC.

Pregnant women should especially get vaccinated before they reach their third trimester, which brings heightened respiratory risks, said Dr. Amelia Sutton, who specializes in maternal fetal medicine at Novant.

Women who become pregnant after getting their first shot should still finish the vaccines series for Pfizer or Moderna “to get as much protection as possible,” the CDC says.

Maternity unit COVID cluster

The renewed vaccine urgency also comes as Atrium Health Pineville grapples with a COVID-19 cluster on its maternity unit. Mecklenburg health officials on Friday said 14 healthcare workers and seven patients were infected with the virus as of Wednesday.

But state health officials on Thursday told the Observer the cluster is far greater at the hospital overall.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services did not specify which hospital departments were impacted, but reported 50 cases among healthcare workers and nine cases among patients. All positives tests that were genetically sequenced were identified as the delta variant.

Rising hospitalizations

Earlier this year, Novant had a lull of several months when no pregnant women were hospitalized for coronavirus-related complications, Sutton said.

But over the last month, Sutton said, multiple pregnant women were hospitalized for COVID-19. Sutton did not disclose the total number of women due to privacy concerns.

Some pregnant patients had only mild coronavirus symptoms. Yet Sutton said she’s also seen patients with COVID pneumonia who can appear quite well at first, before rapidly deteriorating and requiring oxygen treatment.

“We have seen several cases of regret — that they should have gotten vaccinated because their decision not only affects their well-being, but also that of their baby,” Sutton said.

As recently as July, the rate of positive COVID tests among expectant mothers admitted for labor and delivery at Novant hospitals hovered around 0.5-0.7%, Bhojwani said.

Now, that positivity rate has reached 3%, the same volume recorded during the height of the pandemic.

“The problem is the 3% that we’re seeing again is much sicker (patients) than what we were seeing last year,” Bhojwani said. “That’s what really got our attention.”

Bhojwani said the mortality rate for pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19 is “absolutely real.” The CDC has said pregnant women are at increased risk of death from COVID-19, compared to infected women who are not pregnant.

Instances of pregnant women transmitting COVID-19 to their unborn children are rare or nonexistent, Bhojwani said. But preterm birth comes with a range of adverse outcomes, he said.

Vaccine safety

The COVID vaccines are safe for women trying to get pregnant, Sutton emphasized.

The shots do not affect fertility for young women, though Novant doctors regularly contend with that myth — and subsequent vaccine hesitancy — fueled by misinformation on social media.

“That has been debunked,” Sutton said. “Talk to your doctor, talk to someone who has a science background, rather than consulting with your friends on the Internet. Those misconceptions are widespread, and we can explain how they’re not true in in detail and allay some of those fears.”

Novant is educating all pregnant hospital employees about the importance of getting immunized, Bhojwani said.

But the hospital system has a broader message for all people still not protected against the virus. (In Mecklenburg, nearly half of all residents are not immunized.)

“Every single one of us out there has an opportunity to benefit the greater good by getting vaccinated and limiting the spread — limiting the hospitalizations,” Bhojwani said. “We’re seeing numbers rise very, very rapidly.”

This story was originally published August 13, 2021 at 11:29 AM.