Pregnant & Breastfeeding Women Who Get the COVID-19 Vaccine Are Protecting Their Infants, Research Suggests
Becky Cummings, who got vaccinated in December, snuggles her newborn, Clark, while he takes a nap.
Becky Cummings had multiple reasons to get vaccinated against COVID-19 while tending to her firstborn, Clark, who arrived in September 2020 at 27 weeks.
The 29-year-old intensive care unit nurse in Greensboro, North Carolina, had witnessed the devastation day in and day out as the virus took its toll on the young and old. But when she was offered the vaccine, she hesitated, skeptical of its rapid emergency use authorization.
Exclusion of pregnant and lactating mothers from clinical trials fueled her concerns. Ultimately, though, she concluded the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks of contracting the potentially deadly virus.
"Long story short," Cummings says, in December "I got vaccinated to protect myself, my family, my patients, and the general public."
At the time, Cummings remained on the fence about breastfeeding, citing a lack of evidence to support its safety after vaccination, so she pumped and stashed breast milk in the freezer. Her son is adjusting to life as a preemie, requiring mother's milk to be thickened with formula, but she's becoming comfortable with the idea of breastfeeding as more research suggests it's safe.
"If I could pop him on the boob," she says, "I would do it in a heartbeat."
Now, a study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found "robust secretion" of specific antibodies in the breast milk of mothers who received a COVID-19 vaccine, indicating a potentially protective effect against infection in their infants.
The presence of antibodies in the breast milk, detectable as early as two weeks after vaccination, lasted for six weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
"We believe antibody secretion into breast milk will persist for much longer than six weeks, but we first wanted to prove any secretion at all after vaccination," says Ilan Youngster, the study's corresponding author and head of pediatric infectious diseases at Shamir Medical Center in Zerifin, Israel.
That's why the research team performed a preliminary analysis at six weeks. "We are still collecting samples from participants and hope to soon be able to comment about the duration of secretion."
As with other respiratory illnesses, such as influenza and pertussis, secretion of antibodies in breast milk confers protection from infection in infants. The researchers expect a similar immune response from the COVID-19 vaccine and are expecting the findings to spur an increase in vaccine acceptance among pregnant and lactating women.
A COVID-19 outbreak struck three families the research team followed in the study, resulting in at least one non-breastfed sibling developing symptomatic infection; however, none of the breastfed babies became ill. "This is obviously not empirical proof," Youngster acknowledges, "but still a nice anecdote."
Leaps.org inquired whether infants who derive antibodies only through breast milk are likely to have a lower immunity than infants whose mothers were vaccinated while they were in utero. In other words, is maternal transmission of antibodies stronger during pregnancy than during breastfeeding, or about the same?
"This is a different kind of transmission," Youngster explains. "When a woman is infected or vaccinated during pregnancy, some antibodies will be transferred through the placenta to the baby's bloodstream and be present for several months." But in the nursing mother, that protection occurs through local action. "We always recommend breastfeeding whenever possible, and, in this case, it might have added benefits."
A study published online in March found COVID-19 vaccination provided pregnant and lactating women with robust immune responses comparable to those experienced by their nonpregnant counterparts. The study, appearing in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, documented the presence of vaccine-generated antibodies in umbilical cord blood and breast milk after mothers had been vaccinated.
Natali Aziz, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Stanford University School of Medicine, notes that it's too early to draw firm conclusions about the reduction in COVID-19 infection rates among newborns of vaccinated mothers. Citing the two aforementioned research studies, she says it's biologically plausible that antibodies passed through the placenta and breast milk impart protective benefits. While thousands of pregnant and lactating women have been vaccinated against COVID-19, without incurring adverse outcomes, many are still wondering whether it's safe to breastfeed afterward.
It's important to bear in mind that pregnant women may develop more severe COVID-19 complications, which could lead to intubation or admittance to the intensive care unit. "We, in our practice, are supporting pregnant and breastfeeding patients to be vaccinated," says Aziz, who is also director of perinatal infectious diseases at Stanford Children's Health, which has been vaccinating new mothers and other hospitalized patients at discharge since late April.
Earlier in April, Huntington Hospital in Long Island, New York, began offering the COVID-19 vaccine to women after they gave birth. The hospital chose the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine for postpartum patients, so they wouldn't need to return for a second shot while acclimating to life with a newborn, says Mitchell Kramer, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology.
The hospital suspended the program when the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paused use of the J&J vaccine starting April 13, while investigating several reports of dangerous blood clots and low platelet counts among more than 7 million people in the United States who had received that vaccine.
In lifting the pause April 23, the agencies announced the vaccine's fact sheets will bear a warning of the heightened risk for a rare but serious blood clot disorder among women under age 50. As a result, Kramer says, "we will likely not be using the J&J vaccine for our postpartum population."
So, would it make sense to vaccinate infants when one for them eventually becomes available, not just their mothers? "In general, most of the time, infants do not have as good of an immune response to vaccines," says Jonathan Temte, associate dean for public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.
"Many of our vaccines are held until children are six months of age. For example, the influenza vaccine starts at age six months, the measles vaccine typically starts one year of age, as do rubella and mumps. Immune response is typically not very good for viral illnesses in young infants under the age of six months."
So far, the FDA has granted emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children as young as 16 years old. The agency is considering data from Pfizer to lower that age limit to 12. Studies are also underway in children under age 12. Meanwhile, data from Moderna on 12-to 17-year-olds and from Pfizer on 12- to 15-year-olds have not been made public. (Pfizer announced at the end of March that its vaccine is 100 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in the latter age group, and FDA authorization for this population is expected soon.)
"There will be step-wise progression to younger children, with infants and toddlers being the last ones tested," says James Campbell, a pediatric infectious diseases physician and head of maternal and child clinical studies at the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development.
"Once the data are analyzed for safety, tolerability, optimal dose and regimen, and immune responses," he adds, "they could be authorized and recommended and made available to American children." The data on younger children are not expected until the end of this year, with regulatory authorization possible in early 2022.
For now, Vonnie Cesar, a family nurse practitioner in Smyrna, Georgia, is aiming to persuade expectant and new mothers to get vaccinated. She has observed that patients in metro Atlanta seem more inclined than their rural counterparts.
To quell some of their skepticism and fears, Cesar, who also teaches nursing students, conceived a visual way to demonstrate the novel mechanism behind the COVID-19 vaccine technology. Holding a palm-size physical therapy ball outfitted with clear-colored push pins, she simulates the spiked protein of the coronavirus. Slime slathered at the gaps permeates areas around the spikes—a process similar to how our antibodies build immunity to the virus.
These conversations often lead hesitant patients to discuss vaccination with their husbands or partners. "The majority of people I'm speaking with," she says, "are coming to the conclusion that this is the right thing for me, this is the common good, and they want to make sure that they're here for their children."
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mistakenly stated that the COVID-19 vaccines were granted emergency "approval." They have been granted emergency use authorization, not full FDA approval. We regret the error.
Should Organ Donors Be Paid?
A depiction of selling a human heart for cash.
Deanna Santana had assumed that people on organ transplant lists received matches. She didn't know some died while waiting. But in May 2011, after her 17-year-old son, Scott, was killed in a car accident, she learned what a precious gift organ and tissue donation can be.
"I would estimate it cost our family about $4,000 for me to donate a kidney to a stranger."
His heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas saved five people. His corneas enabled two others to see. And his bones, connective tissues and veins helped 73 individuals.
The donation's impact had a profound effect on his mother as well. In September 2016, she agreed to donate a kidney in a paired exchange of four people making the same sacrifice for four compatible strangers.
She gave up two weeks' worth of paid vacation to recuperate and covered lodging costs for loved ones during her transplant. Eventually, she qualified for state disability for part of her leave, but the compensation was less than her salary as public education and relations manager at Sierra Donor Services, an organ procurement organization in West Sacramento, California.
"I would estimate it cost our family about $4,000 for me to donate a kidney to a stranger," says Santana, 51. Despite the monetary hardship, she "would do it again in a heartbeat."
While some contend it's exploitative to entice organ donors and their families with compensation, others maintain they should be rewarded for extending their generosity while risking complications and recovering from donation surgery. But many agree on one point: The focus should be less on paying donors and more on removing financial barriers that may discourage interested prospects from doing a good deed.
"There's significant potential risk associated with donating a kidney, some of which we're continuing to learn," says transplant surgeon Matthew Cooper, a board member of the National Kidney Foundation and co-chair of its Transplant Task Force.
Although most kidneys are removed laparoscopically, reducing hospitalization and recuperation time, complications can occur. The risks include wound and urinary tract infections, pneumonia, blood clots, injury to local nerves causing decreased sensation in the hip or thigh, acute blood loss requiring transfusion and even death, Cooper says.
"We think that donation is a cost-neutral opportunity. It, in fact, is not."
Meanwhile, from a financial standpoint, estimates have found it costs a kidney donor in the United States an average of $3,000 to navigate the entire transplant process, which may include time off from work, travel to and from the hospital, accommodations, food and child care expenses.
"We think that donation is a cost-neutral opportunity. It, in fact, is not," says Cooper, who is also Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute in Washington, D.C.
The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 makes it illegal to sell human organs but did not prohibit payment for the donation of human plasma, sperm and egg cells.
Unlike plasma, sperm and eggs cells—which are "renewable resources"—a kidney is irreplaceable, says John J. Friedewald, a nephrologist who is medical director of kidney transplantation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Offering some sort of incentives could lessen the overall burden on donors while benefiting many more potential recipients. "We can eliminate the people waiting on the list and dying, at least for kidneys," Friedewald says.
On the other hand, incentives may influence an individual to the point that the donation is made purely for monetary gain. "It's a delicate balance," he explains, "because so much of the transplant system has been built on altruism."
That's where doing away with the "disincentives" comes into the equation. Compensating donors for the costs they endure would be a reasonable compromise, Friedewald says.
Depending on the state, living donors may deduct up to $10,000 from their adjusted gross income under the Organ Donation Tax Deduction Act for the year in which the transplantation occurs. "Human organ" applies to all or part of a liver, pancreas, kidney, intestine, lung or bone marrow. The subtracted modification may be claimed for only unreimbursed travel and lodging expenses and lost wages.
For some or many donors, the tax credit doesn't go far enough in offsetting their losses, but they often take it in stride, says Chaya Lipschutz, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based matchmaker for donors and recipients, who launched the website KidneyMitzvah.com in 2009.
Seeking compensation for lost wages "is extremely rare" in her experience. "In all the years of doing this," she recalls, "I only had two people who donated a kidney who needed to get paid for lost wages." She finds it "pretty amazing that mostly all who contact don't ask."
Lipschutz, an Orthodox Jew, has walked in a donor's shoes. In September 2005, at age 48, she donated a kidney to a stranger after coming across an ad in a weekly Jewish newspaper. The ad stated: "Please help save a Jewish life—New Jersey mother of two in dire need of kidney—Whoever saves one life from Israel it is as if they saved an entire nation."
To make matches, Lipschutz posts in various online groups in the United States and Israel. Donors in Israel may receive "refunds" for loss of earnings, travel expenses, psychological treatment, recovery leave, and insurance. They also qualify for visits to national parks and nature reserves without entrance fees, Lipschutz says.
"There has been an attempt to figure out what would constitute fair compensation without the appearance that people are selling their organs or their loved ones' organs."
Kidneys can be procured from healthy living donors or patients who have undergone circulatory or brain death.
"The real dilemma arises with payment for living donation, which would favor poorer individuals to donate who would not necessarily do so," says Dr. Cheryl L. Kunis, a New York-based nephrologist whose practice consists primarily of kidney transplant recipients. "In addition, such payment for living donation has not demonstrated to improve a donor's socioeconomic status globally."
Living kidney donation has the highest success rate. But organs from young and previously healthy individuals who die in accidents or from overdoses, especially in the opioid epidemic, often work just as well as kidneys from cadaveric donors who succumb to trauma, Kunis says.
In these tragic circumstances, she notes that the decision to donate is often left to an individual's grieving family members when a living will isn't available. A payment toward funeral expenses, for instance, could tip their decision in favor of organ donation.
A similar scenario presents when a patient with a beating heart is on the verge of dying, and the family is unsure about consenting to organ donation, says Jonathan D. Moreno, a professor in the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
"There has been an attempt to figure out what would constitute fair compensation," he says, "without the appearance that people are selling their organs or their loved ones' organs."
The overarching concern remains the same: Compensating organ donors could lead to exploitation of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. "What's likely to finally resolve" this bioethics debate, Moreno foresees, "is patient-compatible organs grown in pigs as the basic science of xenotransplants (between species) seems to be progressing."
Cooper, the transplant surgeon at Georgetown, believes more potential donors would come forward if financial barriers weren't an issue. Of the ones who end up giving a part of themselves, with or without reimbursement, "the overwhelming majority look back upon it as an extremely positive experience," he says. After all, "they're lifesavers. They should be celebrated."
Today’s Focus on STEM Education Is Missing A Crucial Point
A student in a contemplative pose.
I once saw a fascinating TED talk on 3D printing. As I watched the presenter discuss the custom fabrication, not of plastic gears or figurines, but of living, implantable kidneys, I thought I was finally living in the world of Star Trek, and I experienced a flush of that eager, expectant enthusiasm I felt as a child looking toward the future. I looked at my current career and felt a rejuvenation of my commitment to teach young people the power of science.
The well-rounded education of human beings needs to include lessons learned both from a study of the physical world, and from a study of humanity.
Whether we are teachers or not, those of us who admire technology and innovation, and who wish to support progress, usually embrace the importance of educating the next generation of scientists and inventors. Growing a healthy technological civilization takes a lot of work, skill, and wisdom, and its continued health depends on future generations of competent thinkers. Thus, we may find it encouraging that there is currently an abundance of interest in STEM– the common acronym for the study of science, technology, engineering, and math.
But education is as challenging an endeavor as science itself. Educating youth--if we want to do it right--requires as much thought, work, and expertise as discovering a cure or pioneering regenerative medicine. Before we give our money, time, or support to any particular school or policy, let's give some thought to the details of the educational process.
A Well-Balanced Diet
For one thing, STEM education cannot stand in isolation. The well-rounded education of human beings needs to include lessons learned both from a study of the physical world, and from a study of humanity. This is especially true for the basic education of children, but it is true even for college students. And even for those in science and engineering, there are important lessons to be learned from the study of history, literature, and art.
Scientists have their own emotions and values, and also need financial support. The fruits of their labor ultimately benefit other people. How are we all to function together in our division-of-labor society, without some knowledge of the way societies work? How are we to fully thrive and enjoy life, without some understanding of ourselves, our motives, our moral values, and our relationships to others? STEM education needs the humanities as a partner. That flourishing civilization we dream of requires both technical competence and informed life-choices.
Think for Yourself (Even in Science)
Perhaps even more important than what is taught, is the subject of how things are taught. We want our children to learn the skill of thinking independently, but even in the sciences, we often fail completely to demonstrate how. Instead of teaching science as a thinking process, we indoctrinate, using the grand discoveries of the great scientists as our sacred texts. But consider the words of Isaac Newton himself, regarding rote learning:
A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road he is at a stand. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub.
What's the point of all this formal schooling in the first place? Is it, as many of the proponents of STEM education might argue, to train students for a "good" career?
If our goal is to help students "reason nimbly" about the world around them, as the great scientists themselves did, are we succeeding? When we "teach" middle school students about DNA or cellular respiration by presenting as our only supporting evidence cartoon pictures, are we showing students a process of discovery based on evidence and hard work? Or are we just training them to memorize and repeat what the authorities say?
A useful education needs to give students the skill of following a line of reasoning, of asking rational questions, and of chewing things through in their minds--even if we regard the material as beyond question. Besides feeding students a well-balanced diet of knowledge, healthy schooling needs to teach them to digest this information thoroughly.
Thinking Training
Now step back for a moment and think about the purpose of education. What's the point of all this formal schooling in the first place? Is it, as many of the proponents of STEM education might argue, to train students for a "good" career? That view may have some validity for young adults, who are beginning to choose electives in favored subjects, and have started to choose a direction for their career.
But for the basic education of children, this way of thinking is presumptuous and disastrous. I would argue that the central purpose of a basic education is not to teach children how to perform this or that particular skill, but simply to teach them to think clearly. We should not be aiming to provide job training, but thinking training. We should be helping children learn how to "reason nimbly" about the world around them, and breathing life into their thinking processes, by which they will grapple with the events and circumstances of their lives.
So as we admire innovation, dream of a wonderful future, and attempt to nurture the next generation of scientists and engineers, instead of obsessing over STEM education, let us focus on rational education. Let's worry about showing children how to think--about all the important things in life. Let's give them the basic facts of human existence -- physical and humanitarian -- and show them how to fluently and logically understand them.
Some students will become the next generation of creators, and some will follow other careers, but together -- if they are educated properly -- they will continue to grow their inheritance, and to keep our civilization healthy and flourishing, in body and in mind.