A group of Ontario hospitals is urging pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, citing a recent trend of child hospitalizations due to the disease.
Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, McMaster Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Kingston Health Sciences Center made a joint statement on the matter.
“With the rise of Omicron, hospitals are beginning to see a potential and disturbing new trend: COVID-19 infant admissions.” the statement issued on Wednesday said.
The group says six babies under the age of 12 months have been admitted to the Hamilton and Ottawa facilities due to COVID-19 since mid-December.
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They say that all the babies admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa had unvaccinated mothers.
The hospital group says babies’ immune systems struggle to fight disease, especially without the maternal antibodies transferred during pregnancy by vaccination.
Their statement says Ottawa Children’s Hospital research has shown no adverse pregnancy outcomes in Ontario due to COVID-19 vaccines, but vaccination coverage has remained lower among pregnant people than the general population.
“Pregnant individuals are considered a population at high risk for COVID-19 complications, based on higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalization, ICU admission and death compared to non-pregnant individuals of the same age,” they said. the hospitals.
“As a result, pregnant people are strongly advised to get vaccinated, not only to protect themselves, but also their babies, who receive antibodies from their mothers during pregnancy.”
– with files from Saba Aziz from Global News
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