CDC Stops Recommending COVID-19 Vaccines for Pregnant Women and Children, P4
- Shidonna Raven
- 8 hours ago
- 2 min read
By Alice Park
Updated May 27, 2025
Source: Time
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
How do decisions like this typically get made?
Do kids and pregnant women still need COVID-19 vaccines?
During the pandemic, when the COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized and then approved, federal health officials focused on using the shots to control severe disease and lower hospitalizations and deaths—not prevent infection. Kennedy, who has long been a skeptic of vaccines in general and continues to openly question their safety, and his health officials have publicly discussed whether the same recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines are still relevant today, when more people have developed immunity to the virus either from repeated vaccinations, infections, or both. A week before this announcement, the FDA said it would limit COVID-19 vaccine approvals to those at highest risk of severe disease, and require additional studies on healthier people to confirm the shots’ safety and effectiveness.
Still, some infectious diseases experts note that in the U.S., during the peak of the latest winter respiratory disease season, just over 400,000 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, and several hundred people died each week. Those most vulnerable to complications that send them to the hospital were older people, those with weakened immune systems, and those who were pregnant. Given the potential risk of Long COVID and some of the still unknown long-term effects of recovering from an infection, the CDC still advises that “getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a safer, more reliable way to build protection than getting sick with COVID-19.”
That’s especially true for pregnant women, who may also pass on the protection they receive from getting vaccinated to their newborns in the first six months, before the infants can get immunized. "Maternal immunization is also associated with improved infant outcomes and decreased complications, including maternal and infant hospitalizations," said the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in a statement.
“By removing the recommendation, the decision could strip families of choice,” said O’Leary. “What is clear is that pregnant women, infants and young children are at higher risk of hospitalization from COVID, and the safety of the COVID vaccine has been widely demonstrated.”
How can such practices impact your health? How Why?
Share the wealth of health with your friends and family by sharing this article with 3 people today.
If this article was helpful to you, donate to the Shidonna Raven Garden and Cook E-Magazine Today. Thank you in advance.
Comments