Doctors urge pregnant women to get vaccinated after rise in ICU admissions

Doctors urging mums-to-be to get Covid vaccine.

Ireland's vaccine programme has been a huge success so far. However, there are concerns about the troubling numbers of unvaccinated pregnant women. Medical experts have revealed pregnant women are entering the ICU on a weekly basis. The Coombe's Dr Cliona Murphy told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that the pandemic is not over for unvaccinated pregnant women especially. She said this subset of the population is still at extreme risk. She revealed that pregnant women with Covid-19 are being admitted to ICU weekly. Dr Murphy stressed that Covid-19 can be extremely harmful to both the mother and her baby. The increasing ICU figures are "a huge, huge ask of the health services.... and a huge incident for the woman and her family". She explained that more needs to be done to encourage pregnant women to get vaccinated.

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Many women believe they're doing the right thing by not getting their Covid-19 vaccine until after their pregnancy. Dr Murphy stressed that the vaccine is safe for mums-to-be. “The official recommendation by the professional bodies is to get the vaccines, that it is certainly a much better option than taking your chances.” She confirmed only 1 in 10 of her recent clinic patients were vaccinated. "You're talking about women who have childcare issues, have travel issues, have financial issues so just getting organised to do that may be a step too far so if we can help in any way with that, then we should be doing so." “Nobody can blame young women for thinking they won’t be seriously affected (by Covid) but, unfortunately, the physiology of pregnancy is different, and it is an extra burden on your body,” she continued. The majority of pregnant women who test positive for Covid-19 will experience mild to moderate symptoms. They give birth normally and the risk of passing on COVID-19 to their baby is low. However, the HSE has stressed that getting vaccinated is the best way to protect both you and your baby from the virus.