Even with high medical competency and my own expertise as an immunologist, I would be lying if I said the decision was an easy one. Data is hard to listen to when it conflicts with our gut feelings, but that can be when people need it the most.
In this case, the data is clear: COVID-19 poses a significant threat to both the mother and child, and vaccination can help mitigate that risk.
THE COMPLICATED IMMUNOLOGY OF PREGNANCY
Pregnancy is an immunological tightrope. At the most basic level, a maternal immune system’s job is to welcome a foreign organism that is consuming considerable resources and allow it to grow unmolested for months.
This doesn’t come naturally. To prevent the identification and rejection of a growing foetus as a parasitic invader, maternal immune systems undergo an overhaul that fundamentally alters their responses to infection in order to support the pregnancy.
But those changes don’t shut down immune responses completely. Compromising immune function to a point where infections are allowed to run rampant would not be a successful survival strategy for mother or child.
Instead, a new partnership is struck. Maternal immune systems selectively choose not to react to foreign tissues and cells associated with the growing foetus and instead enters into a coordinated dance.
Over the course of nine months, it will guide the attachment of the placenta to the uterine wall, promote growth and development of the foetus and ultimately initiate labour to kick off the delivery.
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