GREENSBORO, N.C. — Two Triad moms are encouraging pregnant women to get vaccinated against COVID-19 after the CDC released urgent guidance recommending the shot for women carrying a child.
The latest guidance from the CDC came out Wednesday. The organization said it recommends the shot either before or during pregnancy because the benefits of vaccination outweigh known or potential risks.
Michelle Colbert and Melanie Reardon both got vaccinated against COVID-19 while they were pregnant.
"I was 9 months pregnant," said Colbert. She got the vaccine soon after they rolled out in the spring.
Colbert said she consulted her doctor beforehand.
"I asked my OBGYN if I should get it and she said no and I got it anyway," she said, "I wanted to be protected for myself. I was completely living in isolation when I was pregnant because I was so scared of getting it and then I wanted my baby to have any and all antibodies from the vaccine."
Colbert said she got her last dose two weeks before she was induced. She said both she and the baby are doing great.
"I found out I was pregnant and it made me super worried about catching the virus and giving it to my baby or getting sick and having complications from that so I was super relieved when I was able to sign up for it as an essential worker," said Reardon.
Reardon got the Pfizer vaccine when she was 3 months pregnant.
"Pregnant people are immunocompromised so I didn't want to risk getting sicker and possibly losing my baby," she said.
"Vaccines have been given to pregnant women for a really long time and this vaccine has been worked on for a really long time it was just in a different duration, but they modified what they had been working on to make the covid-19 vaccine. That made me feel really safe about it," she said.
She said she had no complications after getting the shot and neither did her baby, who is now 6 weeks old. "I have no regrets," Reardon said.
The CDC said as of September 27, more than 125,000 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases have been reported in pregnant people, including more than 22,000 hospitalized cases and 161 deaths.
The highest number of COVID-19-related deaths in pregnant people in a single month of the pandemic was reported in August 2021, according to the CDC.
Nona Smith, A Certified Nurse Midwife at City Lake OBGYN in Thomasville, said the latest guidance from the CDC tells medical professionals they really need to be encouraging patients to get the vaccine.
"When you look at the data behind this report from the CDC we actually got reports a couple of weeks ago from the American College of OBGYN and the Society of Maternal and Fetal Medicine that we really need to be counseling to make sure that patients are fully aware that the vaccine appears to be fully safe in pregnancy," said Smith.
Smith said 139,000 women have received the vaccine in pregnancy at all stages nationwide.
"We have not seen any serious safety signals. Part of the reason that this is so important is pregnant women are so much more at risk for becoming severely ill with COVID than women who are not pregnant," she said.
Smith said pregnant women have three times increased risk of being in the ICU, 2-3 times increased risk of being on a ventilator, advanced life support, and a slightly increased risk of dying from COVID-19.
Even if pregnant women don't get severely sick from COVID-19, their children are at risk of stillbirth or premature birth.