Researchers at Centre for Disease Control (CDC) analysed data for 716 babies hospitalized between March 2022 and May 2023. Out of these 377 babies were hospitalized with COVID-19. Mothers were considered vaccinated if they had had at least two COVID vaccines one of which was given during pregnancy. Rest assured, all the other mothers of babies in the study were unvaccinated.
It was found that vaccines were 54% effective at protecting infants from COVID-19 hospitalisation in the first 3 months of life and 35% effective at protecting babies from ages 3 months to 5 months old. Infants can be vaccinated first at the age of 6 months.
It was observed that infants who were hospitalized with COVID-19 whose mothers were unvaccinated were more likely to need help breathing in comparison to infants whose mothers had been vaccinated. The authors mentioned that maternal vaccination during pregnancy provides some protection against COVID-19 related hospitalisations among infants particularly those who are less than three months old.
The data thus reveals, getting a COVID shot during pregnancy significantly reduces the chance that a baby will be hospitalized for COVID-19 but the limitation of the study was that any prior infection of mothers was not analysed including the unvaccinated mothers. It is also possible that infection-induced antibodies could provide some protection against COVID-19 hospitalizations. The latest data revealed that 47% of pregnant women reported getting a flu shot during the past flu season. Among women who had live birth, 54% had reported getting the Tdap vaccine to protect babies against whooping cough.
Source: webmd
