Rachel was seven months pregnant when she started hearing that a COVID-19 vaccine was set to be approved soon. “I didn’t think the vaccine would even be an option for me when the news first came out saying studies hadn’t been done on pregnant women,” she explains. She knew being pregnant put her at a higher risk for serious illness if she got COVID-19.
Rachel continued to take precautions and get as much information
as she could from her own research and from her health care team.
“I’m so grateful the message from the scientific community, including ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists), evolved to say the vaccine is almost certainly safe for mothers and unborn babies.”
Rachel did register to be notified when the group she was in became eligible to be vaccinated. “I was in the group that would become eligible in early February,” she says. “I was now in a race against time, because my due date was just a few weeks away.” When she did become eligible, she searched high and low trying to find where she could get a vaccine. “I spent a lot of time checking Sam’s Club and Walmart websites,” she says. “I was searching in areas almost two hours from my home.”
She lucked out and was able to get an appointment and a vaccine, but she had to travel to St. Joseph, Missouri to get it. “I was 39 weeks pregnant when I got the first dose of the Moderna vaccine,” she explains. “My arm was extremely sore for a couple of days and I had some mild body aches that didn’t last. No other problems.”
“I also consulted with my doula, who happens to have a background in microbiology and has done a ton of research about COVID-19 and the vaccines. She was incredibly helpful in guiding my decision. She pointed me toward evidence-based research and easy-to-understand study summaries. We discussed how even though studies hadn’t been done, everything that’s known about this type of vaccine indicates it should be fine for our health. So, I went from being nervous to get the shot when it first debuted to not even being concerned at all.”
Nine days after she got her shot, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Daniel, with zero complications. “My baby and I are perfectly healthy and doing great!”
