Pregnancy and Covid19 Vaccination

It is, indeed, 'scandalous' that so few pregnant women have been vaccinated against Covid19 (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/29/pregnant-women-vaccinated-covid-mother-child). The reasons for this failure is, however, complex. The first thing to note is that all drug trials (with animals or humans) have tended to focus on male subjects. This is because males supposedly show less variability (due to reproductive cycles) than do females. The relative lack of female subjects is especially important (I did some of the early research myself) when dealing with the immune system. The immune system is clearly influenced by sex steroids (hormones). Pregnant women are also clearly at greater risk because their immune systems are impaired, especially in the latter stages of gestation. This is a natural response reducing the chances of their rejecting the foetus as a 'foreign' material. The foetus may actually play a role here, as there is a surge of immunosuppressive steroids from its adrenal glands (more of my early research) just before parturition (delivery). In spite of this, FDA regulations actually embargoed using pregnant or lactating humans in initial drug trials. This was largely a hangover of the Thalidomide disaster (the anti-morning sickness drug that produced abnormalities in many children). There was consequently an initial gap in the safety information from drug trials on Covid19 vaccine candidates. Consequently, pregnant women (certainly in the UK) were initially advised not to risk vaccination, until after their child had been delivered. Some women were even turned away by treatment centres, in spite of having been informed that vaccination was a personal choice. Pregant women, who contracted a Covid19 infection, also tended not to be given other life-saving treatments. Some medics routinely worried about potential side-effects. Even when advice on vaccination of pregnant women changed, some were given outdated documents and/or inappropriate advice by midwives. It consequently seems hardly remarkable that vaccine hesitancy persists in the pregnant women cohort. It's also unsurprising that pregnant women are turning up with Covid19 infections in hospital Intensive Care Units. Some are dying and others producing stillborn babies. Pregnant women should never are been largely dismissed as an inconvenient afterthought in the Covid19 saga! Anyone can become infected by a virus and all categories of patient need equal consideration especially in a pandemic.