What proportion of pregnant women have been fully vaccinated? | David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters

The share is likely to be higher than recent claims

Recent articles have stated that only about 15% of pregnant women in the UK have been fully vaccinated. This seems low, but is it right? The figure is quoted in a Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists press release but the only source given is a Public Health England report that states that, up to 31 August, around 65,000 women receiving their second vaccination ticked a box asking: “Are you or could you be pregnant?”. However, this number does not tell us what we want to know.

Fortunately, Public Health Scotland links health records on vaccinations, pregnancies and births. Its report tells us that, of 4,069 women who gave birth in August 2021, only 615 (15%) had received two vaccine doses. These women will have been pregnant throughout the vaccine rollout and have clearly tended to avoid vaccination – of women aged 35-39 giving birth in August, 23% were fully vaccinated, far fewer than the 71% for all adults aged 30-39.

David Spiegelhalter is chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge. Anthony Masters is statistical ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society

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Stella Creasy on her lonely maternity cover battle: ‘Women should be able to have kids and do politics’

The Labour politician is used to fighting battles – but can she win her latest: convincing her colleagues to back proper maternity cover for fellow members?

Stella Creasy is dodging people on the pavement as we talk. She apologises for the background noise but it’s hard finding time for a conversation when you have a newborn son, a toddler daughter, and no proper maternity leave from a full-time job as Labour MP for Walthamstow; this walk to an appointment is the only window she has. Last month, she spoke in a Commons debate on childcare, baby Pip in a sling, sounding astonishingly composed for someone who had given birth four weeks earlier. I ask how she’s feeling and she laughs briefly and says: “Tired as hell, mad as anything.”

And then it all comes tumbling out: the night before that debate, she’d been in hospital with an infection she thinks was brought on by doing too much. The day after her caesarean, she was dialling into meetings with the defence secretary from hospital – she has had about 200 cases in her London constituency of people seeking help getting family members out of Afghanistan – and has barely stopped since. “There wasn’t any alternative,” she says. “These are people ringing up my staff threatening to kill themselves because they’re so worried about family members. You can hear the terror in their voices.” Meanwhile, she’s grappling with “the mum guilt” for not taking more time off, while struggling to be patient with people in parliament who ask how she is, only to back away when answered honestly. Having lost a battle with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) this summer over the maternity leave cover she wanted, Creasy refuses to draw a polite veil over the consequences. And if that means breaking the working mother taboo against admitting that everything is not in fact fine, then so be it.

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It’s scandalous so few pregnant women in the UK are vaccinated against Covid | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

It’s the wise thing to do for mother and child, yet official advice has been insufficient and mixed

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It is coming up to a year since the first mRNA vaccines were approved for use against Covid-19, and almost seven months since they were approved for expectant mothers. The initial government advice was was that they should hold off getting a jab, but since more data has become available, medical experts have been encouraging women to get vaccinated. But there has been no big government awareness campaign, despite pregnant women being identified as a vulnerable group. I knew the proportion of fully vaccinated pregnant women in the UK would be low, but I did not expect it to be as low as 15% (in the US, it is more than twice that, at 33.8%).

That such a small porportion of pregnant women are fully vaccinated in the UK, seven months after vaccines were approved for them, is nothing short of a scandal. And more women and their babies are at risk of dying because of it. Recent figures for England show that one in six critically ill patients are unvaccinated pregnant women with Covid. Of the 20 pregnant women requiring the highest level of life-saving care, 19 were unvaccinated and one had received one dose.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

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Pregnant women are being turned away from Covid vaccine clinics, experts warn

Members of JCVI say focus on those who have not had any jabs must take precedence over efforts to increase booster uptake

• Why pregnant women need clearer messaging on Covid vaccine safety
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Pregnant women are being turned away from Covid vaccine clinics despite clinical advice, experts have warned as they urged ministers to ramp up efforts to reach unvaccinated groups.

Members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) told the Guardian that efforts to increase booster jab uptake will not be sufficient to prevent more deaths and hospitalisations, and that ministers must prioritise reaching those who have had no jabs. In particular they urged a focus on pregnant women as only about 15% in the UK have been fully vaccinated. Among all over-12s, the figure is 79%.

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Why pregnant women need clearer messaging on Covid vaccine safety

Analysis: early uncertainty around vaccination advice for expectant mothers has left them confused and hesitant

• Pregnant women are being turned away from Covid vaccine clinics, experts warn
• Coronavirus – latest updates

In the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, there was uncertainty around almost everything, from who was more adversely affected by Covid-19 to who should get vaccinated first – or at all.

But as awareness about the illness and vaccine safety has grown, one group in particular remains confused and torn about the risk of immunisation: expectant mothers.

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‘Gunmen killed a midwife who refused to leave a woman in labour’

Zahra Mirzaei pioneered ‘groundbreaking’ maternity services in Kabul, but has been forced to flee. She says she won’t stop fighting for dignified care for Afghanistan’s women and girls

When Afghanistan’s first midwife-led birth centre opened in the impoverished district of Dasht-e-Barchi in western Kabul this year it was a symbol of hope and defiance.

It began receiving expectant mothers in June, just over a year after a devastating attack by gunmen on the maternity wing at the local hospital left 24 people dead, including 16 mothers, a midwife and two young children.

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‘People say it’s a miracle, but it’s not: the Royal Brompton saved Christina’

How experts at London hospital treated woman who went into cardiogenic shock after C-section

• London hospital uses ‘James Bond medicine’ to tackle rare heart condition

Christina Randall went into cardiogenic shock at Watford general hospital in February, moments after giving birth to baby Ronnie by planned caesarean section. She was put into a coma and was “rescued” by a team from the Royal Brompton hospital in London, who were unsure if she would survive the journey there.

However, after treatment at the Brompton, including spending time having extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), the 40-year-old shop manager was transferred back to Watford general, made a full recovery, went home and is in very good health.

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